Weyr and Islands
by Gabion
Summary: What happened to all those people exiled over the last 2500 years on the Eastern Islands?  Do their heirs and successors deserve to be exiled - are the sins of the fathers visited on the generations following?
1. Chapter 1

_What happened to all those people exiled over the last 2500 years on the Eastern Islands? Do their heirs and successors deserve to be exiled - are the sins of the fathers visited on the generations following?_

St'ven sighed as he picked up another bundle of dirty clothing and dropped it into the laundry basket he was hauling along. These bronze riders were so very careless of their belongings, and it made his punishment tasks a lot harder. He sneezed as he tossed another dirty shirt in the basket, and began to sort out bedding.

"Hump the mattress, don't just flap it," he muttered, one of his mother's maxims. He stripped off the dirty sheets and dumped them in the basket, and found fresh bedding, leaving it in a neat pile to make the bed on his way back from the various bedrooms in the Weyr.

"First the foot and then the head, that's the way to make a bed," he chanted as he made the bed in the next room. This one was tidier; G'frey was neat and bookish, and St'ven wondered what he had found to read from the archives. St'ven smoothed the bedclothes and moved on.

"Hss!"

He jumped in startlement and looked around, and saw R'ding beckoning from the window.

"What is it?" St'ven asked irritably as he went over. "I've six more rooms to clear - "

"You won't want to miss this! Look - the Harper's back."

R'ding pointed and St'ven peered. The diminutive figure of Piemur the travelling Harper and a lot else besides showed on the lower levels. His queen fire-lizard carolled above his head, showing off, and St'ven heaved an envious sigh.

"Where's he been? He doesn't often visit here, does he?"

"He's been a couple of times," R'ding said, lounging against the stone wall as they watched the Harper disappear. "How much longer will you be?"

"As long as it takes, and less if you don't bother me," St'ven snapped back. "About an hour or so, I suppose, then I'm on kitchen duties."

"Oh my, you really did get up their noses this time, didn't you?"

St'ven glared at him. "It wasn't my fault! How was I to know the lid wasn't on properly on that can of paint? It looked firm enough!"

"Did you kick it?"

St'ven's face crimsoned. "No I did not. If you must know, my foot caught in the rug, and I tripped, and it went - everywhere - "

A slow remembering grin spread over his face, and then he shook his head with a sigh and turned back to his duties.

"See you then," R'ding said, and St'ven heard his footsteps going away. He sighed again and pulled on the laundry basket, trying to get through the door, banging his shoulder painfully and losing his grip. The basket rolled backwards, and spilled everything over the floor. St'ven stifled a curse he had heard from the Weyrmaster and began picking everything up, trying to remember the order he had put the items into the basket. That purple shirt belonging to C'topher, he knew that. It was a lurid and horrible colour to St'ven's eyes.

St'ven reached the laundry caverns and recoiled from the heat. With Thread falling soon no one was going to risk washing outdoors.

"Over here," Tasha called briskly, and St'ven pulled the basket across.

"Bronze riders' stuff," he said, and she nodded and marked the basket and the washtub.

"What's your next task?" she asked.

"I need to go back and make a couple of the beds - then I'm for the kitchens."

"I'll call you when this lot is dry and ironed."

"Thanks."

He made his way back to the bedrooms, and was annoyed and discomfited to find J'mes in residence, pulling off his boots and tossing them carelessly into a corner.

"Who - oh it's you, is it?"

"I need to make your bed."

J'mes yawned hugely as he pulled off his shirt.

"Go on then. Is G'frey here?"

"I didn't see him."

"Good enough." J'mes caught up a towel and padded through into the washroom and St'ven quickly and competently made the bed, smoothed and tucked, and then fetched the boot stretchers and inserted them, hung J'mes' jacket up.

"You were on punishment duty two days ago," J'mes said, startling him.

"Yes. And I'm on it again."

"You were on it last week as well," G'frey said from the doorway, coming in with a page of writing. "Does someone have it in for you, youngster?"

St'ven flushed. He was short and skinny, and looked ten years younger than his true age, but after a second, he realised G'frey did not mean it as an insult.

"I don't think so, bronze rider," he said respectfully. "I just seem - to be accident prone."

"Oh - the can of paint?" G'frey's lips twitched, his grey eyes twinkled. "I heard about that."

"I tripped on the rug."

"You often trip on things," J'mes said unexpectedly. "I've seen you do it."

"The Weyrling Master says I don't think - he says I just sort of - rush at it."

G'frey nodded. "I expect he would say that. Carry on, then."

Dismissed, St'ven hurried back down to the kitchens. Lamora, the Headwoman was there, inspecting the menus, and glanced at him.

"Off you go, St'ven."

"Off - I've duties - I need to report - "

"You've done so," she said briskly. "Now off you go - your dragon was asking for you."

"Maranath was asking?"

"Yes. Off you go."

He wavered, looking around the kitchen, and Lamora came over and walked him to the door, her hands on his shoulders.

"You are a dragon rider, not a drudge," she said firmly. "Now off you go! Oh, and take this - you're so thin I can feel all your bones!"

"Thank you - I mean - thank you - "

He clutched at the cloth bag and hurried off, careful to put a hand on the stone wall as he climbed the stairs, counting under his breath, remembering the oddly chipped step second from top, and came out into daylight.

He blinked at the strong sunlight, aware of sweating already, and made his way around the shaded verandahs to where the young dragonets were disposed on a stone shelf soaking up the sunshine.

One large brown rose on hind legs, flapped its wings and squealed, rousing the others to a muttered litany of complaints as Maranath called his rider.

_- you came! I asked the kind lady with the soft mind to tell you to come_.

St'ven recognised the description of Lamora and grinned as he hurried to his dragonet and sat himself down comfortably between the huge front legs. Maranath dropped his head gently onto St'ven's head and the young man caught the odour of food. It made his own mouth water and he opened the cloth and spread it out. Lamora had put in a wedge of hard cheese, some bread, redfruit and a bottle of drink. St'ven sighed contentedly and began eating, looking out over the landscape.

From this ledge he could see the various stone terraces dropping to the river and beyond it in the eyewatering distance the far hills rising towards the snowy wastes of the south. Two wings of dragons were exercising far above, and he focussed on them and saw C'topher's bronze leading his wing.

"Spare me a drink, youngster?"

St'ven jerked around, coming out of communion with his dragon, his eyes unfocussed, seeing only a blur of brown and white in front of him.

_- it is the Harper-man and his golden queen_.

"Oh - ah - Master Piemur - "

Piemur dropped to a sitting position.

"Thanks for the shade - what's your dragon's name?"

"Maranath."

"Maranath. Thanks for the shade."

The dragonet's eyes whirled in blue pleasure, as Piemur took a sip of the water.

"Thanks. What were you watching so intently?"

"C'topher's wing exercising. His blues and greens are all quite young."

Piemur squinted.

"How can you tell the Wingleader at that distance?"

"Oh - I just guessed," St'ven said hurriedly, licking a finger and picking up the breadcrumbs on the cloth, not looking at the legendary Harper.

"Hmm. How far along are you in training Maranath? He's a big brown, isn't he?"

"The biggest of the Hatching," St'ven said proudly. "He'll be as big as - as Canth when he's finished."

_- bigger. As big as the biggest one._

Piemur grinned. "He said he'd be bigger, I bet?"

"They aren't increasing in size as much now," St'ven said. "Up to the beginning of this Pass, they were always getting bigger, but since then they've stayed at a uniform size. As if - this is as big as they're going to get, ever."

"How d'you figure that one out?"

St'ven shrugged, and Piemur did not say anything more, seemingly content to sit and watch the activities of the Weyr on this sunny day when Thread was a full day away.

"Someone coming," Piemur said softly. "The Weyrling Master, by the look of it."

St'ven groaned and focussed on the approaching figure as the Harper stood up and brushed himself down.

"What are you doing idling here?" K'neth demanded angrily. "I put you on punishment duty."

"Lamora sent me out here," St'ven said, stumbling to his feet, tripping over Piemur's feet, and nearly overbalancing.

"You've been asleep? I'll soon put a stop to that!"

"He was pointing out and naming some people to me," Piemur said mildly. "In the heat of the day, Weyrling Master, you couldn't expect him to be scrubbing pans, surely?"

K'neth scowled at them both.

"Class in an hour," he snapped and strode off. Piemur watched him go.

"You surely are not his favourite," he said ruefully.

"He doesn't have favourites, but no, he doesn't like me very much."

"Are you weyr bred?"

"No, I came from along the coast that way. A small fishing hold, with some cropping land behind it."

"Any fire lizard nests?"

"Not a one," St'ven said. "We used to look along the beaches, but nothing."

"Is the land grubbed?"

"Yes, and we've stone roofs, and some - cover for the crops."

"That's good. I think I'll drop in on your class - in an hour."

St'ven watched him go, and wondered why he had said that, with that particular intonation, as if he was displeased with something. St'ven reviewed what he had told the Harper. Nothing, he thought with relief. Nothing about the crop cover they used, nor the unusual things they sometimes found buried in the sands. His father was a strict and stern man, and did not like an idle mouth to flap out all their business.

_- I would like to see your home, when we are allowed to do more than fly in circles_.

St'ven fervently agreed as he checked the dragonet for flaky hide and then made his way to the classroom to endure more of the Weyrling Master's reproofs and unkind remarks.


	2. Chapter 2

The usual disclaimer - I do not own the copyright to Pern, but I like to play there! I am told there is a dragon rider called St'ven already, rider of brown Mealth, in the canon books, but this is not the same rider. Please bear with me if I don't change his name.

St'ven managed not to drop his slate or chalk at the beginning of the lesson. The weyrlings had to have the commands word perfect for when they were allowed to fly and supply the wings with firestone. K'neth was a good teacher, he kept them on their toes, but he kept turning and writing on the board, and St'ven had to squint to see, or slide a glance at R'ding's slate.

The whole class jumped to their feet when three men entered; Piemur, and the two Wingleaders G'frey and J'mes.

"Wingleaders," K'neth said. "Is anything the matter?"

"No, we just thought we'd see how the lads - and lasses - are progressing." G'frey nodded to the two girls who had Impressed greens.

"They'll be ready," K'neth said grudgingly. "All of them, I hope, if they keep up."

Piemur had strolled along the lines, and glanced at St'ven's slate. As if he had seen his glance, K'neth nodded.

"Even that one."

"No fault with his writing hand," Piemur said. "A good clear hand. I might borrow him to do some copying."

K'neth shrugged, and turned back to the board, and G'frey came over.

"Move to the back of the room, brown rider," he said quietly. St'ven squinted up at him, and at K'neth.

"Move - to the back?"

"Yes. There's a desk there, I see?"

"Er - I only just came out of that one. It's - it's the punishment desk."

G'frey strolled over to it with his slow deceptive walk, and beckoned. St'ven gave a helpless shrug and gathered his slate and chalk, and followed him. K'neth was glaring, and the rest of the class was tittering as they watched.

J'mes moved to the front of the class.

"Now, suppose I need firestone," he said. "What do I call out?"

The boys and girls looked uneasily at each other.

"Firestone?" R'ding ventured.

"Good. And if I'm too far to shout?"

"You won't be," Sessel said boldly. "We have to keep up with the wing in order to hear you call."

"True enough."

"You might make a sweeping gesture," Sessel went on. "To indicate firestone. We'd have to be alert for that."

"Green riders are smart and quick," J'mes agreed. "How far off proper formation are they, K'neth?"

"A week or so, I suppose. They fly every afternoon when there isn't Thread."

"Good. I look forward to seeing them practice today."

He walked out, but G'frey stayed to the end of the hour, and Piemur settled into an empty desk and sat watching, drumming his fingers in a silent rhythm on his folded arm.

When they gathered themselves together, Piemur crooked a finger at St'ven.

"Let me see your writing hand on paper," he said, and the young rider followed him out, sidling past K'neth who gave him an angry glare. The sunlight struck bright after the dark room, and St'ven stumbled, and heard K'neth's snort behind him. Piemur put out a hand.

"Steady there. In here, I think, will do."

St'ven stared at the paper in front of him, and the pen and ink.

"I - I can't write," he said unhappily. "I mean - what do I write?"

"Try something you know. A ballad you like, something Maranath told you?"

He watched St'ven grip the pen and scribe careful words, and then turned the paper around.

"Yes. Neatly done. How do you manage to write with your eyes closed?"

St'ven stared at him, and at G'frey who had come in.

"Eyes - eyes closed - I was watching what I was writing!"

"No you weren't, youngster," G'frey said. "Nor were you doing so in class. You looked at the board, you read the words, then you shut your eyes to write it on your slate. If anyone of us did that, our writing would be all over the place. Yours was as neat as that ballad line."

St'ven stared from one to the other, wondering desperately what he was going to say.

"The truth is always good," G'frey said drily. "You can't see close up - any fool can realise that - it's why you're so clumsy on your feet. Piemur tells me you identified C'topher at a distance most of us would hardly pick out a dragon, let alone who rode it."

"It had to be a bronze from the colour, and you and J'mes were at home."

"What about E'dard?"

"He's not here. His wing went out to Southern yesterday."

"Hmm. It's not an evil thing, y'know, to have a different talent. This Pass, we've learned so much about ourselves and our origins, and the way the colony was set up, I wouldn't be surprised to find people who could transfer _between_ as well as dragons."

"But they were engineered, people weren't," St'ven blurted. "I mean - that's what the records say, isn't it? The stuff we learned from AIVAS?"

"The records we had, yes. But if dragons have evolved due to their programming, in 2500 years I would expect people to have bred other characteristics into themselves. Music now, that has become dominant because we lost computing technology but needed to keep records and memories alive. Empathy with the dragons and the dolphins - that was bred into our people before ever they reached Pern. Why not other talents, eh? Like being able to write perfectly without seeing."

"Automatic writing," Piemur said suddenly. "There was a reference to it in Aivas, along with some stuff about being sensitive to moods - on old Earth it was used by charlatans to fleece the unwary, making them think they could see the future."

St'ven looked down at the line of writing. He could see it perfectly, he knew exactly what he had written, but he also knew if he was looking at a page of a book he had never read before, he would not be able to see it.

"I should go and join the others," he said nervously.

"Yes, go and tend your dragon," G'frey said at once. "I'll have a word with you, Piemur, if I may, about some writings I can't decipher. Where did you say your family hailed from, St'ven?"

"Along the coast a way."

"So you did."

St'ven watched them leave the room, and then crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it fiercely into a far corner, and hurried out of the room to go and join the soothing presence of his dragon.


	3. Chapter 3

Once again, the usual disclaimer - Pern is the copyright of Ann McCaffrey, I just play here. Thanks for your reviews, everyone, and your encouraging words. I've been asked about the reference to "automatic writing" in Chapter Two. I was trying to convey the image of being able to absorb the words from the board in a subliminal way and write them down. I may come back to that detail later.

In the following week St'ven found himself too busy to worry about any unexpected talents. He had to learn how to fit a harness to Maranath, and endure good natured grumbling from the leathermaker about the size of the harness. Learning how to fasten the buckles and straps took time.

"I wish he'd find somewhere else to go," Sessel muttered angrily one afternoon when she had fumbled yet again with her harness and K'neth had snapped at her.

"Where else could he go?" St'ven asked reasonably. "His dragon can't fight Thread, with that weakened wing."

"F'lessan's dragon's the same," Sessel grumbled under her breath. "He doesn't snap and shout."

"Have you met him?" R'ding asked. "Where did you meet him?"

"I didn't," Sessel admitted. "But the bronze riders were talking about him one evening. Saying how he was coping with all his injuries and those to Golanth."

"They could both have died," R'ding agreed. "But he's a different case to K'neth?"

"They must both fret when Thread comes over," St'ven said, and oddly found some comfort and toleration in that thought, and the next time K'neth shouted at him, he did not stiffen up, but bent to the task again and did it correctly. He straightened to find the Weyrling Master standing hands on hips and watching him.

"Well - that's better. Why can't you do that every time, instead of fumbling worse?"

"I - I was thinking - about it - more - "

"Huh! If all you young riders would think more about your tasks!" He turned away, but St'ven put a hand on his arm.

"Weyrling Master - will I be allowed to fly with the others?"

K'neth turned and stared at him.

"Whatever maggot have you got in your head now, boy?" he demanded. "Not fly? You're a dragon rider. Dragon riders fly to char Thread."

"Yes - yes I know. But you seem - I mean - I'm not the worst in the class am I?"

K'neth looked around at the other young people busy on their tasks.

"No," he said at last. "No, you're not the worst, although you're the clumsiest I've ever trained. But you've a good dragon, even tempered, quick on the wing. Now - get on board and go through the drill again for me."

St'ven nodded and put a foot into the harness, and swung himself up to his place, reached for the straps and fitted them, naming them as he did so.

_- he has never said such nice things to us before_

_- I know it. We must try not to think badly of him, either_

_- I never thing badly of such a good fighter. Histeth talks to us about fighting Thread. It is very exciting_

St'ven laughed softly and agreed as he waited for K'neth to check their harness.

"That's good. Get down now and join the rest of the wing."

St'ven did so, and managed to get himself down to the training ground without tripping or stumbling, mainly because he knew the way so well, and he could augment his sight with that of Maranath.

"What was he saying to you?" R'ding asked curiously.

"Just checking my harness," St'ven said with a smile and a shake of the head. "I'm getting it into my head now."

R'ding laughed. "Oh yes! When you can do anything with only one telling! Not like us!"

They swung on board their dragons and then with a whoosh of wings and a blast of sand and debris the entire group was airborne. They circled and took up their positions. P'tar took the lead position as a bronze rider and potential wing leader, and R'ding and St'ven lined up on either side, with the other dragons grouped around them.

No one could ever predict what combination of dragons would come out of a Hatching, however small the clutch, but to have only one bronze was unusual. P'tar was a strong youth, always out on the sports field, but now he looked around and gestured a couple of the blues to come in closer, and then looked ahead to where K'neth hovered on Histeth.

"You're to fly straight ahead to the blue marker," K'neth called to P'tar. "Relay it to the others."

St'ven _heard_ the command from Maranath and acknowledged it with a fist in the air, and turned to look at the group under his nominal command. Impressing at the same time, this disparate group would always be together, he thought, and that insight was enough to make him swell with pride as Maranath swept his wings forward and back and propelled them through the air to the rendevous point.

They spent the day flying from point to point, and then gathered around K'neth as he hovered.

"Now - you will fly between," the Weyrling Master told them, raising his voice over the rustling of dragon wings. "Visualise the star stones over the Weyr. Do you have them?"

St'ven blinked as Maranath relayed the picture to him from Histeth. He glanced over at the Weyr and saw the star stones plainly, but closed his eyes and concentrated instead on Histeth's picture.

"P'tar - go!"

There was a blast of cold air from his left, and another from his right as R'ding went, and then K'neth called out.

"St'ven - go!"

The terrible cold lasted for three breaths and then they were bursting out above the star stones of the Weyr, quickly taking their place to one side.

"Is that it?" R'ding asked, incredulity in his voice. "Just - visualise it?"

"You have to know it intimately," K'neth said as they landed safely and gathered around him. "You need to know every reference point in the Weyr, and be able to show it to your dragon."

He glanced at St'ven as he said it, but the young man nodded thoughtfully as he took in the full import of that speech. He would have to rely on Maranath to show him the reference points at first, but once they were able to fly high and hover far off, he could fix them in his mind.

"What about timing it, Weyrling Master?" Sessel asked, always the boldest, and the one to ask the question the others wanted but could not say.

"You don't time it, ever," K'neth said flatly. "There's no need for such a thing at your present level of experience, and there should be no need for you to time it."

St'ven heard the muttering, and the name of F'lessan, but he ignored it. To time it, you had to know what something looked like in the past, and since he had never been able to see anything beyond his nose, that would be difficult.

_- you know your own place, and I can see it also_

_- you heard him_

_- I heard him. I would not do anything to threaten either of us. But it is unfair._

St'ven jumped nervously, because Histeth's great brown head was swinging towards him and the dragon poked him in the chest.

_- your talent is not for that, brown rider of Maranath. What it is, we cannot decide_

St'ven stared in astonishment at the brown dragon as it swung its head away and seemed to be about to go to sleep, lidding its great eyes. He looked at K'neth who was frowning at him, then shaking his head and dismissing them to release their harnesses, spend an hour cleaning them, and then go and bathe their dragons and oil their hides before the evening meal.

G'frey dropped down onto the bench next to St'ven to his great embarrassment at the evening meal.

"Been flying, I hear?"

"Yes bronze rider."

"Good. I'm going to do some training with K'neth for a while, to help him out."

"You aren't wounded? Nor Lamath?"

"No indeed. But we could both do with a rest, the Weyrleader says. We've enough wings to have that luxury."

St'ven nodded, pouring G'frey some fruit juice. Neither of them mentioned he had his eyes closed, and G'frey took a sip.

"Did Piemur leave you some copying work?"

"Yes, and I've managed a little of it."

"Do you understand it?"

St'ven frowned. "It was about computers, is that right? The same as the ones at Landing?"

"Yes. Did you understand it?"

"I think so. I understand the basic principles, you have to input information in a certain sequence to get an answer - it's about codes, and languages. We only have one spoken language here on Pern, don't we? Back on Old Earth they had dozens, so it's told."

"Told by whom?" G'frey asked quickly.

"Oh - the harpers and such," St'ven said, being deliberately vague. "But computer languages aren't like our spoken ones."

"That's right. Well, I'll see you in the morning, youngster." He stood up, and then smiled. "Oh, by the way, the drudges aren't nearly as good as you at making a bed!"


	4. Chapter 4

Again, I don't own Pern, but I like to play. I hope this section isn't moving too slowly, but I tend to work in small chunks of a couple of thousand words at a time. Thanks for all the reviews, and the ideas of what you want to find out! Wait and see!

St'ven brought his writing to G'frey one hot sleep-inducing afternoon. He had been working on the computer notes Piemur had left him, and also some notes K'neth had given him to learn.

"Hello youngster," G'frey said sleepily, tilting his hat back to see St'ven casting a shadow over him. "Sit down, in the shade here. Have you ever known it so hot?"

"It's not usual," St'ven agreed.

"Do your family come from Southern?"

"Around the area, yes," St'ven said cautiously. "Pa fishes the coast, so we've moved around a lot."

"Mapping?"

St'ven sat down, crossing his legs and disposing his notes in his lap before answering, aware of G'frey curiously penetrating gaze.

"We drew maps of the coves we stopped at, and made a note of the fishing grounds," St'ven said at last. "Ma made notes of any medicinal herbs she found."

"What does your mother do as a craft, if she has one?"

"She trained for a while as a weaver, she still does some of that when she can get yarn."

"Brothers and sisters?"

"Two of each."

St'ven glanced at the bronze rider. "Do you have family?"

"Scads of them," G'frey said cheerfully. "And very pleased and honoured when I was Searched."

"Mmm." St'ven bent his head over the notes. "I've written out those codes you showed me."

G'frey held out a hand and took the notes, squinting at them in the strong sunlight.

"They look good - you've ruled these lines?"

"Scored them, rather, just to give an indication to follow. What d'you want them for?"

"I don't. F'lessan wants them, over at Honshu. Something to do with the starwatching he does." G'frey sat up and fanned himself with his hat. "Tell you what, why don't we go and deliver them?"

St'ven stared at him.

"They're finished, you can take them," he said.

"No, not just me. You as well - I didn't copy them, did I? What's your schedule for this afternoon?"

"Practice."

"Good practice to get to Honshu and back," G'frey said with a grin, standing up. "Come on, we'll let K'neth know we're going."

St'ven stood up hurriedly, balancing himself against the tree trunk until he was sure of the ground under his feet. He trotted after G'frey, delighted and appalled in equal measure to be swept up like this. Honshu! The legendary home of one of the original colonists, and now occupied by an equally legendary bronze rider; F'lessan had been up the ships and been part of the group to alter the orbit of the Red Star. St'ven glanced instinctively into the East where he could see the pulsing menace of the planetoid even in the bright daylight.

K'neth looked up in surprise from his craft work, mending and decorating a leather harness.

"Honshu? Yes, Maranath can fly there and back quite easily. He's a very strong dragon. There's no Thread in this part of the world for a day or so. Make sure you strap your harness tight, St'ven. Don't rush it."

"Yes Weyling Master. Thank you!"

He darted off to alert Maranath who was already rousing from the sun filled ledge. He was sure the other two men would be speaking about him, but he was not going to let anything detract from this delightful surprise.

_- we are to fly to Honshu? Will it be cooler there?_

_- I thought dragons liked the heat?_

_- this is too hot. It will break in storms and I do not like storms_

St'ven busied himself with his harness, and went to wheedle a couple of water bottles and a bag of food from Lamora who laughed at his enthusiasm.

"I'm sure there'll be food enough at Honshu! Here you are - these won't spoil on the flight, and won't crumble either. These two water bottles as well."

St'ven raced back to his dragon to find G'frey waiting.

"Good thinking, youngster, even if we are only going on a short flight. Up you get."

Maranath raised himself from the ground and took station, and then the two dragons were winging towards the interior and the high cliff formations of Honshu. St'ven was busy reviewing everything he knew or had been told about that place, and about the original colonist who had made it his home. So long ago, yet with the discovery of AIVAS they knew everything about their progenitors at last, and could use the computer files to forge ahead with the level of technology the Ancients had wanted to engender.

"Now the Pass is into the last stages, and the Red Star is vanquished, are the dragon riders really going to be allowed Southern?" St'ven asked G'frey as they flew.

"So it's said. There's more than a dozen years before the end of the Pass, though, long enough for all the dragons on Pern at the moment to grow old and tired."

"How old does a dragon get?"

"As old as its rider," G'frey said at once. "They live together and they die together."

St'ven shivered and stroked Maranath's smooth hide.

_- we are together. We will always be together._

_- yes I know. Sorry, but I just worried, for a minute._

_- you need not worry. I am here to look after you._

St'ven laughed out loud and shook his head, and G'frey gave him a companionable smile, as if to acknowledge that he knew the dragon had been speaking to his rider.

They came out of _between_ at Honshu. G'frey had told Lamath to give Maranath the directions, and when he was sure the brown dragon had them, they had gone _between_, and come out in a cloud of freezing air into the warmth and sunlight near the rocky escarpment. Looking down, St'ven could see the high electrified fences to keep out the feline predators that had so nearly put paid to F'lessan and Golanth. He shivered, and scanned the area with his long sight, but could see no sign of felines or their nests. A group of runner beasts was grazing, seemingly unconcerned, protected by the fences, and if they were undisturbed then nothing was creeping up on them, he thought, as they began to back wing to land on the terrace.

A figure came out of the Hold, leaning on a stick, and the two dragons landed neatly, and were greeted by one of the largest bronze dragons St'ven had ever seen, wounds still showing pink scars of healing even after this length of time.

"Piemur's here too," G'frey said in surprise. "I thought he'd gone north."

"Why would he do that? Isn't he a Southern harper?"

"No, not at all. He owes his loyalty to Harper Hall, not any southern hold. Take the harness off Maranath and bring it with you."

St'ven followed the taller rider, suddenly finding himself shy, hanging back, even when Piemur greeted him.

"Here's just the very man! Have you written out those notes? Good!"

St'ven bobbed an awkward bow to F'lessan, who gripped his arm in greeting, smiling, and led them into the cool of the hold. The stone walls were smoothed and painted, there were rugs on the floor, and comfortable seating. A woman was coming forward with a smile, and was introduced as Tia, green rider, originally from Monaco Weyr. St'ven hoped he did not stiffen when she announced that, and Piemur swept him into a study and spread out the notes.

"Did you understand them?" he asked.

"I think so."

"Here - sit down here - this is a computer - "

"Yes."

Piemur fiddled with knobs and the writing on the screen suddenly leaped into focus, making St'ven kick his chair back with a gasp of surprise.

"It's all right. You can do that with any screen - it helps to have the writing larger."

F'lessan had followed them in, and limped across to view the notes.

"Nice neat hand! Tia, this beats even your script."

"Let me see. Yes, this is marvellous - so accurate - it's almost like printing with those squared off letters. How - oh, you've run an indentation? Clever!"

"Can you enter the code?" Piemur asked. St'ven hesitated, then shrugged, and put his hands on the keyboard. He could hear the clicking, and see the lines of code, and then pressed the enter key.

Stars and constellations flashed into being on the screen and he dialled the focus back until it was comprehensible.

"You told me, but I didn't believe it," F'lessan said quietly to Piemur. "How did you do that with your eyes closed, brown rider?"

St'ven clenched his hands together.

"I - I don't do it consciously," he said at last. "But I think - I've always done it that way - I can't see close up, so I learned this different way."

"Each to his own, and talent comes out in different ways," Tia said briskly from the doorway. "Come and eat something, all of you."

St'ven sat on the edge of the sofa and stayed mute as they ate and drank, listening to the others talking, watching them, relaying their conversation to Maranath who seemed to be enjoying it as much as he was. In the end, as nearly always happened in a group, Piemur began to sing, and the others joined in with him, making variants on a song St'ven had never heard.

"Is that from the Harper Hall?" he asked at last.

"Oddly enough, no. It comes from Nerat, from a small hold there, passed along by the runners a dozen or more years ago. When the Master Harper - " he paused and St'ven knew he was thinking of Robinton. "As I say, the Master Harper sent for the maker, but he'd vanished, seemingly after an argument and a fight over a woman - he never resurfaced, but I suppose he's somewhere out in the wilds, still making music, hopefully, and earning a living."

"Can Harpers do that? Leave their craft?"

"They can't leave their music," Piemur admitted. "That goes with them as all craftspeople find out in life. But they can and do move around. If they don't come to Harper Hall - and not everyone does - then they find a cosy Hold and live their lives out there."

"But the music spreads out," St'ven said slowly. "Like ripples. You can't tell who will be affected by it."

"That's a true word," Tia said with a smile. "Have you had a chance to look at the files at Landing yet, with all the musical information?"

"Me?" St'ven brought his voice down from a squeak of astonishment. "No of course not. I'm still learning and practicing - I'm a dragon rider - not a - not a - "

"Everyone is entitled to go to Landing," F'lessan said sternly. "There's enough breaks in Threadfall to allow for that. Once you've been assigned a place in a wing, or even if you're only a reservist, you can apply for time there."

"I'd like that," St'ven admitted.

"We'll make sure you do it, then," G'frey said with a smile, standing up. "Now, we've tired you out enough, F'lessan - no don't argue - I can tell you're tired. We'll be away before any storms come up."

St'ven, coming out, was surprised by the colour of the sky, the brassy yellow tint in the clouds, and the teasing kicking wind blowing dust into his face.

"Time to make doubly sure your harness is secure," G'frey said, and St'ven nodded, and went through the procedure, speaking it just under his breath as he tightened the last buckles and turned to say his farewells. Then he and G'frey swung onto their dragons and were winging upwards to a safe height.

"I don't like the look of that at all," G'frey called. "It's right over the Weyr, by my guess. I don't want to risk a transfer right into the heart of it! We'll fly straight for a while."

St'ven nodded and tucked his chin into his jacket collar as Maranath stretched his wings and followed the bronze dragon, bucking occasionally in a strong blast of wind. They tipped sideways once, and Maranath fought to get airborne again, and St'ven wiped sweat from his face.

"We'll have to go down to shelter," G'frey shouted over the wind. "Follow my co-odinates!"

_- I have them, I follow_

St'ven gasped at the freezing cold of _between_ and then they were coming out into calmer air, seeing the storm away to their north and west, and Lamath was winging down to a small clearing and a stone building. They landed, and St'ven looked around uncertainly.

"Where - where is this?"

"This is my hold," G'frey said. "My bolt hole, if you like, a place I've made my own. Hang on whilst I fire up the generator and the fence."

St'ven realised the fence was the same as the one as Honshu.

_- it keeps the predators out_

_- yes, and it makes us feel safe_

_- the power is not strong enough to kill, although Lamath says it can be increased. This is - something new_

St'ven unbuckled the harness and let Lamath and Maranath waddle off together. He came to the building and peered inside. The first room seemed to be lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves.

"There isn't room at the Weyr for them," G'frey said ruefully.

"Don't they spoil in the heat?"

"I seal the doors and windows when I leave. Come in, and help me open the windows to get some air through."

St'ven walked from room to room, staring around in pleased surprise. The library opened into a large sitting room with an open fireplace, and there were guest bedrooms.

"Is this - is this what we'll all have?"

G'frey looked around the rooms as they shed their riding leathers and sat down with some fruit juice to drink. "I suppose so. More or less. Some dragon riders will never be able to leave the safety and security of Weyrs, you know."

"Will we leave the northern Weyrs to decay, though?"

G'frey shook his head. "I doubt it. Like I say, some older riders will probably remain there, but most of us will make new homes here."

"And the fences? Are we always going to need those?"

G'frey shrugged. "I can't tell you that. I know there are arguments for and against the complete extermination of the felines. I'd prefer to see them controlled. They've lived here as long as mankind, y'know, twenty five hundred years. And despite horror and scare stories, I don't believe there are that many of them."

"There will be soon enough. There weren't enough prey animals for the groups to grow large, before Southern Hold and Weyr were established."

"True enough." G'frey considered the younger rider. "You know a lot about Southern, don't you? Your Pa must have walked over as much of it as Piemur?"

"Just - along the coast - fishing - like I said - " St'ven stammered.

G'frey held up a hand. "I'm not trying to pry into you, youngster, but you'll admit you aren't the usual run of dragon riders. Were you Searched from home?"

"N - no. I was at Southern - I was - um - "

"Not running away?"

"No. Just - trying my wings, I suppose."

"And the dragons liked the look of you, swept you up, and you Impressed, and you still haven't managed to sort yourself out?" G'frey smiled sympathetically. "I know the feeling! What did your family say?"

"They were pleased, I think. Like I say, there's others at home - it wasn't as if I was an only, and their sole hope or support."

"That's a very odd attitude," G'frey said thoughtfully. "As if you ought to feel obligated to them."

"I should do! They're my parents!"

"Mmm. All right, we won't argue. I think we ought to try and catch a couple of hours of sleep before we go back."

"Won't they worry?"

"Lamath bespoke Sagath, and J'mes will tell the Weyrleader and K'neth where we are. Don't fret."

St'ven sighed deeply. "All right. Some sleep would be nice - it's been so hot the last couple of nights, I haven't slept much."

G'frey laughed and agreed and they separated to the bedrooms, and St'ven touched minds with Maranath to find his dragon comfortably asleep as well.


	5. Chapter 5

Usual disclaimer - Pern is not mine but I like playing here.

Scene Five - I am madly writing the conclusion to this story as I post the beginning! Thanks for the feedback, and thank you for liking the story.

St'ven woke in the late evening. He leaned up on one elbow and blinked around the room, wondering where he was, and then remembered he should be back at the Weyr and training.

He came out of bed and took a couple of uncertain steps.

"There's hot water here," G'frey called, and St'ven found a bathing room, with an ingenious device to shower water from a warmed tank. He dried himself, feeling invigorated, and dressed again, coming out into the main room to find G'frey had made a small meal.

"I overslept as well," the bronze rider said cheerfully. "Lamath has reported us all safe, and we'll be back in good time."

He had raided St'ven's food bag and laid out fruit and the meat rolls, and they ate and drank, talking about the practicalities of how St'ven could use a computer even if he had to enlarge the screen.

"I can't believe no one else has had this problem in all these years," G'frey said at last.

"I was told it isn't uncommon," St'ven answered. "What might be uncommon is my answer to it. How I get round not being able to see."

"There might be something in that. I wonder - we have time - to go and see someone who might have an explanation about it."

"Pa explained it to me," St'ven said in alarm. "He said it was just one of those things - who are you thinking of?"

"Master Starsmith Wansor at Cove Hold."

St'ven stared at him in astonishment.

"Cove Hold? That's - quite a way away."

"Yes, but we can be there and back in no time."

St'ven shook his head. "K'neth said there was no reason we should ever need to time it."

"Oh my, and you don't want to try it? Just once? Just for a tiny stretch of time?"

_- I want to try!_

G'frey laughed and pointed. "Maranath just said he wanted to try, didn't he? Come on, let's do it, brown rider!"

St'ven allowed himself to be swept along. They tidied the house, locked up, G'frey switched off the generator, pointing out the glass panels that brought energy direct from the sun into the batteries. Then they were up on their dragons, and St'ven closed his eyes and allowed Maranath to take directions from Lamath. All the senior dragons knew the layout of Cove Hold, he realised, and all they had to do was visualise it at sunrise that day, calculating the angle of the sun, and with a blast of freezing nothingness they were there, coming out over the beautiful cove, seeing the sparkling ocean. St'ven took a longsighted look along the coast but could not see the distinctive shape of his father's fishing boat, and relaxed, and followed G'frey down to the sands of the cove.

_- Lamath says we can bathe! In the sea! I will like that!_

_- be careful the fish don't nibble at you then_

_- they would not dare_

St'ven was smiling as he followed G'frey up the path to the generously sized Hall. He knew this had been Master Harper Robinton's last home, and was now inhabited by the three nominal guardians of Landing.

"Good to see you, bronze rider!"

"And you, Lord Lytol! My greetings, Lord D'ram."

He introduced St'ven and Lord Lytol gave him a long hard look.

"I think - I may have seen you before - but I can't place it."

"His family fish along the coast," G'frey said easily. "You may have seen them if they dropped in to the Cove."

"Yes, that's probably right. Come along in, anyway." He studied both of them. "Timing it, bronze rider?"

"Just a very little, my lord," G'frey said formally. "We were at Honshu this afternoon, had to detour to my hold to escape a storm, and came to you for a visit - St'ven is proving very handy at copying."

"Ah then, you are welcome," Lytol said with a smile. "A good copying hand is always useful, even with all the products of Printing Hall available to us."

"Is that the new Hall?" St'ven asked. "I've seen some of the printed things it produces - amazing to think we could have lost that skill."

"I think the colonists had enough to think about, without worrying about that," Lytol said dryly, as he escorted them indoors.

"Oh, I meant no offence, sir! Just that - the records at Fort - there was so much lost in the First Pass."

"And then everyone was busy expanding, and using the dragons for messaging, they lost vital skills," a second older man said. "Greetings, both of you. Mind the step!"

St'ven picked himself up from the floor, flushing crimson, and heard Maranath's questioning bugle, answered it hurriedly, and brushed himself down.

"Long sighted," G'frey said in explanation. "I wondered if he could be helped, that was all."

D'ram frowned at them both. "Long sight is both a blessing and a curse," he said. "There was a family back in the Old Times, who had that. They used circles of thickened glass to see through. Do you know of that, youngster?"

St'ven shook his head, hoping his expression was deadpan.

"Well, well, it was a long time ago. Have you been to Landing?"

"No sir. F'lessan said I could - when my duties permit - but there's Thread on this configuration this evening."

D'ram raised an eyebrow. "How did you know that?"

"The tables, sir, at the Weyr, showing it."

"You've memorised the tables?" G'frey asked incredulously, and St'ven flushed scarlet.

"I - I can - seem to remember - when I've looked at something."

The third member of the older men had come into the room, tapping with his stick.

"It was called an eidetic memory," he said. "AIVAS mentioned it. An ability to retain the impression of whatever you have seen. As a dragon rider, I would think it immensely useful, if you can train your mind not to explode with images."

"Yes sir."

"Come and see the maps then," D'ram said with a smile, defusing the situation, and St'ven came to the big star chart room, standing well back so as to be able to focus on the maps.

"Which part of Soutern did your family come from?" D'ram asked casually.

"Oh - along the coast - Pa never said where his own family was from - we wandered a lot."

"Really? Weren't you hold-bound during Thread?"

"Oh yes, we sought shelter then, but mostly - we fished."

"What about your mother's family? Weaving? Wasn't that your craft, Lord Lytol?"

"It was indeed. Which Hall did your mother study at, youngster?"

"I - I don't know," St'ven stammered. "She - she never said."

All of them were staring at him, D'ram frowning.

"Are your parents holdless?" he asked bluntly. "Were they asked to leave their family hold?"

St'ven flushed up again. "I don't know, sir, they never talked of their families or homes. I never asked. It didn't seem the right thing to do."

"You must have been curious," G'frey said. "Was that why you were at Southern? To try and trace them?"

"Well - I did have that idea - but I didn't like it at Southern - you're watched too closely there, by the guardsmen of the Lord Holder, if you're a stranger."

D'ram nodded. "We know that, youngster. Rude of us to keep asking you questions you don't want to answer! So long as you've nothing to be ashamed of in your past?"

St'ven met his probing gaze. "I don't, sir."

"Good enough. I wonder if I can ask you to do some copying for me? I do get relays of youngsters copying, but perhaps you'd like to join them?"

"Here? I don't - "

"No, no, you can take the stuff with you. Let me give you some samples of what I want and need, and you can work on them in your spare time if you want?"

"I'd like to be able to help."

"I'll try not to overload you!"

St'ven found himself with a satchel full of papers and pens and bottles of ink when they left the Hall, coming down to where their dragons were lazing in the sun.

_- there were shipfish, they had seen your father's boat_

St'ven froze and almost stumbled in mid-stride

_- did they tell anyone?_

_- no. They said they never told. Why? Is there something you are hiding from me?_

_- I never hide anything from you, my own soulmate, you know that. I cannot tell you more unless I have their permission_

_- I understand. Are we going now? _

G'frey handed St'ven his harness.

"Strap up tight, because we're going to time it again, youngster."

"Thanks."

"You've a deal of explaining to do to your family one day," G'frey continued in a grim voice. "There are letters, you know, and dragons will take a message for a dragon rider."

"Yes. I know. I've been - so overwhelmed - thank you for bringing me away from the Weyr - it's cleared my head."

"I thought it might. Now, up you get, and we'll get home just after the storm has died away, ready to fly an evening patrol."


	6. Chapter 6

Maranath swept down into the dragonet enclosure as the last of the storm rumbled away over the ocean. St'ven unbuckled the harness and checked his dragon's hide for sore patches.

"Where've you been?" K'neth asked from behind him.

"I was with the bronze rider G'frey, Weyrling Master," St'ven said formally. "Lamath bespoke the Weyr Leader for permission."

"Hmm. Let me examine your dragon - see if you've overriden him."

"We rested in the heat of the day."

K'neth did not answer, running a hand over Maranath's muscled hide, poking and prodding for flaking, examining him for any open wounds.

"Now you - you've caught the sun - "

"I think that was here, this morning," St'ven answered. "If we're riding evening patrol, my helmet and goggles will protect me."

"Go down and get some salve from Lamorna anyway."

He stook back and studied Maranath.

"He's going to be one of the biggest browns of the Pass," he said at last. "You need to come down to the exercise halls, to keep up with him."

St'ven looked doubtfully at him. "The exercise halls? Why? I'm strong enough, Weyrling Master?"

K'neth shook his head.

"Be there after patrol, and let Drois put you through some exercises."

St'ven was scowling as he carried his harness into the tack room and hung it up in place. He scuffed out of his riding boots, put the stretchers in, and stood them neatly by his locker.

-_ why are you disturbed?_

_- I don't need to be pushed and prodded in the exercise halls._

_- do you need to be strong to ride me?_

_- yes, but I can do my own strengthening_

_- you are upset. I do not like it when you are upset._

_- I'm sorry, yes, I'll go and see what they want from me this time._

St'ven made his way down to the kitchens and collected a tray of food, coming back to the dining hall. R'ding waved an energetic arm, and St'ven went to join him and Sessel.

"Where did you vanish to?"

"I was with the bronze rider, G'frey."

"Huh! Did he bore you to death with all his reading? What use are books to a dragon rider? We just need to know the maps, and schedules, and how to flame Thread."

St'ven tackled his food for a moment, and then looked at each of them.

"And in a dozen or more years, when we're ready for middle age, perhaps with a mate and children? What are you going to do with your time then?"

R'ding looked blankly at him. "Do? I'll - ride my dragon - farm, I suppose - I don't know! I'll leave the future to look after itself."

Sessel shrugged. "Me too, but I'd like to learn some sort of craft work. My family were all share croppers, there never seemed to be much time to spare, but my father did some wood carving. What do your family do, St'ven?"

"They're fisher folk."

"Will you settle near them, when the time comes?"

"Probably. But as R'ding says, a dozen years in the future - what sweep are we flying tonight?"

"Now he asks!" J'mes said from behind him as he dropped several sheets of well scraped parchment on the table. "Study that, and take your directions from Sagath when the time comes."

R'ding snatched up the crudely drawn map and scowled at it.

"At least it's over the sea - no sudden up-drafts to catch us out."

"The storm's still lingering," Sessel pointed out. "That can cause some big waves out at sea."

They talked it over, and passed the maps around between themselves so that when St'ven collected the trays and used cups and plates the wing had a good idea of their plans for the evening.

"No need for you to do that - " Sessel said.

"I've been out most of the day," St'ven replied, juggling the trays and making his way back to the kitchens. He knew the way there, knew the dips in the stone floor, and was grateful no one had thought to put carpets on the floors.

"Thanks, St'ven," Lamorna said from her place. "I'm going to ask you to fly crop patrol tomorrow, once the Thread has dispersed. We're running low on food stocks."

"Be pleased to," he replied, and went to fetch his flying gear. Food patrol wasn't glamorous, but they needed to be fed, and as his father always pointed out, glamour came a poor second to an empty belly. Thinking of them, he diverted to the school room and signed out a couple of sheets of paper, pen and ink. He stashed them in his bed place, intending at long last to write a letter.

_- they must know where you are?_

_- they've probably guessed. _

_- shall I try and bespeak a little brother to tell them?_

_- no, the written word will be enough. Are you ready for tonight?_

_- I like to fly at night._

St'ven was smiling as he came to the launching ground, carrying his harness, allowing the Weryling Master to check it before he began to strap it on, checking the buckles, enquiring if it was too tight.

"What was it like, timing it?" Sessel asked quietly. He glanced warily around.

"How did you guess?"

"Your eyes. I've seen it before in the top riders."

"It was - different. Disturbing, to be there before your time, as it were."

"I hadn't thought about that. They say you have to be careful not to meet yourself coming, so to speak."

"Yes. I wasn't anywhere I had been before. It's like - a cat's cradle game. You can't cross the lines."

Sessel nodded. "I understand that. When they did it at the beginning of the Pass, it was desperation. There's a lot more understanding about it now."

"Have you tried it?"

Sessel shook her head with a smile. "I'll wait until I'm sure of myself and Wineth before I try it."

"I doubt if I'll do much more. It was the storm. Maranath doesn't like storms. He says he likes night flying."

"There's something special about it, about guiding yourself by the stars. At home we used to get up and go to bed with the sun - we hardly ever had time for the night sky."

St'ven looked around the group of young dragon riders. They had been taken from their family lives, and lived only for their dragons. Not many had the chance to get out of the rut of everyday living.

"It shouldn't have been like this," he said. "We shouldn't have to slave all day as the share croppers and drudges do - we took a wrong step somewhere."

Sessell looked startled and almost frightened.

"You can't say that. When they - the people after the first Pass - when they had to organise - they did their best."

St'ven shook his head. "It's not something I'm going to argue with a Lord Holder, or a Weyrleader, but we took a wrong turn. But that's not our concern now."

"Are you two ready?"

"Yes, Weyrling Master."

He watched K'neth test the buckles, and then mounted to Maranath's shoulder and slid into the space between his spines. He buckled the harness around himself, checking the straps. He adjusted the collar of his jacket over the soft scarf he always wore, tightened the helmet to his face and made sure his goggles were clear. The weyrlings followed into the darkening sky, following after J'mes and his wing as they took a long slow patrol along the coast to check the land and sea had not suffered during the storm or recent Threadfall.

_- there is a fisherman's boat out there_

_- I see it. They don't look in any distress. I've marked it on the map._

_- I wish I could write._

St'ven nearly dropped his pad and scriber. He stared at Maranath's head, around at his strongly sweeping wings, down at his taloned feet.

_- you want to write?_

_- there are so many splendid stories to be told, between the dragons, between the little brothers, between the ship-fish. I wish it could be written down_

_- you could tell me?_

_- you would write it in your words. These stories - are not in words. They are - in everything. We must stop talking. Sagath thinks we do not pay attention_

St'ven forced his concentration back to the task in hand, taking more detailed notes as they overflew the coast, and turned for home. The lights of the Weyr shone across the horizon and he thought of the other Weyrs on the planet. As the world turned, some of them would be asleep, some gathering for the day's activities. And every inch of Pern was watched by dragons and their riders. He found that comforting as they swept into their place, and then he remembered he had to go to the exercise halls, and wondered what excuse he could find not to do so.


	7. Chapter 7

The usual disclaimer about copyright. This is a short one, but important. This schedule Whiteraven93 demands, a chapter every other day, is a killer! Lol.

St'ven made his way reluctantly to the exercise halls. They had been carved out of sheer rock like most of the Weyr, with the excavated rock then mortared in front to make a larger space. He hated these closed in rooms and halls in the bowels of the Weyr, although he knew the reason for them, to make them Thread-safe. When the Pass was over, he would make a place of his own open to the sky so he could watch the stars.

"Who's that? Oh yes, St'ven. K'neth said you'd be down. My, there isn't much of you, is there?"

"I'm strong enough, Master."

"Let's give you a few strengthening exercises then. What did you do in your childhood?"

"Boat fishing, mostly. Swimming, and some cropping."

Drois nodded as he poked and prodded at St'ven's muscles.

"There's good underlying muscle. The thing about riding against Thread is the unexpected. The way your dragon jinks and dinks, and throws you around, no matter how good your fighting harness. So those are the things we concentrate on."

St'ven looked around at the other groups. Several of them were indulging in hand to hand combat on the mats, others were lifting weights with a single-minded determination that tired him just to watch. There were sets of ropes and several vaulting horses, and he hoped Drois would not suggest those. It took time for his senses to catch up with him if he went at speed, and he was pretty sure he would make a fool of himself over the vaulting horses.

"This will do for starters," Drois was saying. "You can follow this routine for tonight."

St'ven stared at the instructions written on the wall near the lifting machine. Drois had stumped off to supervise others, and St'ven risked shutting his eyes and visualising the instructions. They were in his mind, he just had to interpret them. He stepped into the contraption and began the exercises.

"Put a bit of muscle into it, weyrling," someone drawled and St'ven looked around to see B'ris watching him. He lowered the weights gradually to the bench, watching B'ris warily. The brown rider was a full wing rider under C'topher, and part of the group of young men who competed in land games when they could.

"I'll put a few more weights on for you, shall I? You're just playing at it, you won't be able to ride the wing if you can't hold on to the nursery straps."

"I'm finished here, thanks," St'ven said, stepping away, and trying to negotiate a path through the equipment. B'ris backheeled a weighted rod, and St'ven tripped, feeling the rod bark his shins, the pain enough to make him gasp.

"See? Weakling weyrling! Here, catch this!"

St'ven stumbled backwards as he caught a glimpse of the rod coming towards him. He reached out by instinct and grabbed it, and swung it around to try and make B'ris back off. He caught the other rider a glancing blow, and before he knew what was happening someone else had made a snatch at the rod. The distinctive odour of hair dressing told him it was R'dard, and then he was being flung into B'ris who drove a fist into his chest. St'ven came around and whirled the rod, but he was being crowded backwards into the equipment. Someone had shouted "fight" and the group was embroiled in a hard fist fight, tripping and stumbling over the weighted rods. Drois shouted from the other side of the hall and came running towards them.

St'ven felt his anger boiling over as he bludgeoned into someone, feeling the skin rasp from his knuckles as he swung a punch. Someone kicked his right knee, sending huge fountains of pain through him.

Somewhere he could hear someone bellowing in anger and distress and that anger gave him strength to fight his way out of the corner. Someone grabbed and twisted his left arm, pain lancing through him. He was falling, cracking his shoulder and his head on a bench, feeling himself going down into darkness, still trying to shout in his head to the person whose rage had lent him inhuman strength.


	8. Chapter 8

You all know the disclaimer by now. Thanks for all the reviews!

K'neth looked up and around from his work when Histeth called him. He flung the work down and went running, and the Weyrleader followed him. They ran out into the well-lit courtyards, to see the young dragons in a turmoil.

"Histeth says Maranath has run mad!"

"Only if something has happened to his rider," the Weyrleader responded. "Where is the boy?"

"Down in the exercise halls."

"I've never seen him down there before?"

"I sent him," K'neth admitted as he skidded to a halt in front of his dragon. Histeth was yellow-eyed with fury and fear, and K'neth grabbed him by the muzzle and swung the great powerful head around so that he could see his rider.

"I'm here! I'm here! What's the trouble - is that Maranath making such a fuss?"

_- there is trouble. They hunt him down. They hurt him_

"Who hurts him?" the Weyrleader asked, as he stared around at the chaos. Riders were erupting out of their quarters and running for their dragons. Two young blues took off straight upwards, barely avoiding crashing into and injuring each other, and G'frey came out of his room half dressed and raced to Lamath.

"Someone's in danger!" he shouted. "Lamath! Bespeak Maranath!"

_- I cannot. He fears. He angers. He is so strong! I had not known a young dragon could have such power in his mind._

G'frey ran towards Maranath, only to be swept off his feet by the brown's wing tip. He skidded and bounced, and Sessel caught him up, tumbling to her knees herself. G'frey clutched at her and struggled to his feet as Maranath raised himself to his full height, screaming his anger and fear, the fear of a child, G'frey realised, as the other dragons tried to calm and soothe him, and K'neth and the Weyrleader ran to the exercise halls.

_- I am coming. I am coming. We will go far, far, we can circle the world - I am coming -_

With a blast of freezing air Maranath was gone between. G'frey stared in appalled horror at the space where he had been, at the eddies of dust, and Lamath was picking himself up, limping, and Sagath was trailing a wing.

_- he has gone between_

_- I saw, but he is not - dead? Nor the young rider?_

_- neither of them - but I cannot detect him - he has gone - far far away, as he said._

_- he was frightened_.

"Are you all right?" Sessel asked urgently. "Look, the healers are coming - has Lamath damaged himself?"

"Help me over there," G'frey said through gritted teeth, and held on as the girl helped him limp over to his dragon who crouched, keening in a low bewildered voice. But neither Maranath nor his rider was dead, G'frey thought, as he flung an arm around Lamath's shoulders, and Sessel broke away to fetch cloth and hot water, coming back at a run.

"It may be only a sprain, Lamath," she said soothingly. "Raise your foot - oh yes - see - that talon - I'll fetch numbweed."

"No need, I've got some here," Lamorna said, pushing a bowl into her hands. "And you wash your knees as well, to get rid of all that grit. Are you all right, bronze rider?"

"I'll have bruises in embarrassing places," G'frey said on a huff of laughter. "Thanks, Sessel."

He watched the young rider competently slathering numbweed onto Lamath and then binding the torn talon back to the foot.

"You've done this before?"

"Not on a dragon, but I'm farm bred, I can deal with most injuries."

They looked round as K'neth came into the ground, directing the young riders to go to their dragons, Histeth obviously speaking to all of them.

"They roughed him up pretty badly, and knocked him unconscious. Where's Maranath?"

"Gone _between_," G'frey replied. "Not dead, obviously, but Lamath can't find him."

"Can no one sense him?"

G'frey shook his head as he gestured around the dragons and their riders. "Time enough to try and find him, once we get these children soothed and calmed."

"Yes, you're right."

G'frey watched K'neth moving amongst his charges, Lamorna and her kitchen girls coming out with hot drinks.

"Any one would think he cares for you," G'frey said to Sessel, and she glared fiercely at him.

"Of course he cares for us. Like he cared for all of you when you were his charges. I've seen him scanning the sky when you seniors come in from fighting Thread, counting you in, like he counted you out."

"Yes, I know, I've watched him doing it as well. He's a very fine rider."

"Does he fret, not fighting?"

"Of course. He and Histeth will go out if the fall is slight, when they don't need to manoeuvre too closely or cleverly."

"I didn't know that. Shall I help you back to your rooms? Lamath? Are you able to get to your weyr?"

The bronze dragon shuffled and limped his way to his place, and Sessel helped G'frey limp after him, both of them beginning to breathe a little easier as the crisis passed.

"The Weyrleader is bespeaking Benden for help," G'frey said quietly as Sessel helped him onto his bed. "I'm fine now - go on - dress those knees - you won't be able to fly _between_ until they heal."

Sessel nodded, and left the room, and G'frey reached out for his dragon's mind.

_- I still cannot find Maranath_

_- I hope he will come back when he calms down_

_- we taught him to time it. Where could he have gone?_

_- perhaps to Cove Hold. He knows the images of that place_

_- he knows everywhere that is in his rider's mind_

_- say again?_

_- you think a dragon needs to have the position fixed for him. I know your mind - I could take you back to the place in your childhood where you tumbled from the rock and cut your knee - everything in your mind is mine to read, as mine is open to you._

G'frey stared up at the ceiling, trying to grasp the enormity of what Lamath had just said.

-_ he could be anywhere in St'ven's past?_

_- yes. But does he know the images of this place well enough to come back safely?_

_- oh - shards - Lamath!_

_- we call him, continuously, and the little brothers do so also. We will find him, he must be somewhere or somewhen in this world of ours._


	9. Chapter 9

The usual disclaimer, and I hope everyone is enjoying this - Whiteraven, stop jumping up and down and shrieking!

I had to edit this - reading through, I realised I left out half the chapter! I have added the last half now.

He thought he was drowning, but there was no water. He thought he was on fire, but there was no heat. He thought he was lost and despairing and on that thought opened his eyes.

"Don't try and move, brown rider."

A quiet voice, soothing, an arm around his shoulders, and fellis juice slipping down his throat before he could protest.

"You had quite a knock. I want to see your eyes focus before I let you fully wake. Sleep now."

He was asleep, he was sure of it, because it was dark and warm here, he could move a little, but he had no need to go anywhere else just yet. Here was a vast continuum of being in which he was content to float. He thought perhaps he was drowning again, but there was no water. There was a light, and he was impatient to find it, and he was battering to get out of the warmth and darkness now, urgent, because there was something he needed beyond this comfort.

"That's better. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three."

"Good. Drink this. No, it isn't fellis, just warmed soup."

"Sick - "

"No, I think you'll be able to keep it down. Sip it - that's right."

He felt better for the smooth warmth of soup spreading through his stomach.

He took a deeper sigh and relaxed against the woman's strong arm.

"Not - Lamorna - "

"No, I am Brekke."

"Brekke? Brekke? From Benden? Why?"

"You took a knock. They sent for me, and Lady Sharra."

He stared in amazement at the tall willowy woman as she stood up and away from his bed, which he realised was not in his barracks but in a single room. There were no windows, and a light burned.

"I was hurt? When was I hurt? I don't remember."

"I'm not going to tell you - I need you to remember what happened."

"There was a fight." He could feel some terrible fear beginning to build, an hysterical fear, and he lunged up and grabbed at her shape as she stood by his bed. He gasped in pain as fire shot up through his wrist into his shoulder, and down his leg. He fell back, gasping with pain, clutching at the bed clothes.

"I couldn't fight them all off," he said, gulping at the terror. "So many - I couldn't count them - I couldn't fight - "

"I understand you did some serious injuries, brown rider."

Another person standing in the doorway, and he blinked at him.

"F'lessan?"

"The same." The bronze rider limped into the room and another man followed, with a flop of greying hair, piercing yellow eyes, and he shrank back into the bedclothes.

"You put at least three of them into bed with broken bones, and another half dozen were too dizzy to fly for a while."

"No - I can't fight - I can't see to fight - they tripped me up and knocked me down. I can't fight."

F'lessan frowned at Brekke.

"Doesn't he remember?"

"Not a thing, apart from the fight."

"St'ven - do you know who I am?"

"Yes. And this is Brekke, who's a famous healer, and that - " his voice wobbled. "That's the Benden Weyrleader, Lord F'lar."

"You know there was a fight?"

"Yes. They must have done this?"

"Yes, they knocked you down, and broke your wrist and damaged your knee."

He lay back, frowning at them, trying to remember, trying to recall where he could have had the strength to injure people. Something outside himself had done that, the same strength that had broken the shell and propelled him into the open and amongst people.

"Maranath," he said on a breath. "Maranath did it, through me."

"What did your dragon do, brown rider?" F'lar asked as he fetched out a pad and stylus, his eyes keen. "Can you tell us?"

"He was afraid, and angry, like I was. He gave me the strength - and the sight - to be able to fight."

"Yes? And now?"

He frowned around at them.

"Now? Now I need to get better and reassure Maranath, and then once I've healed, we can fly patrols again."

F'lar made a final mark on his pad and put it away.

"Your dragon went _between_, brown rider, when you were knocked unconscious," he said, ignoring Brekke's protests and his own son's instinctive gesture. "He is not dead, obviously, or you would have known, but he is gone. He has been missing for the three days you have been unconcious, and no dragon on Pern can touch his mind."

He stared up at them, and F'lar took a step back so that he could focus on him.

"Gone away?"

"Yes. The last thing he said, that any dragon could hear, was that he was coming, and would take you far far away. Do you know where he is?"

He stared around at them, bewildered and confused.

"Of course I do. He's right here with me, we are together. It was warm and dark at first, but then we came out of the shell, and now we're together. That's what dragons were bred for, to be in symbiosis with men, to fight Thread."

"He is not here in the body."

"I think he is. I know he is in a place - it's warm - near the sea - we like the sea. There are little brothers here - lots of them - they dance and sing and we try to sing with them."

Brekke turned away and went to the door and stood for a moment murmuring, then came back in.

"I've sent Grall to see if he can find them," she said quietly. "Can you describe where you are, St'ven?"

"I can't see Landing - it's further around than Landing - oh I know where it is! I was there when I was a boy - fishing - it's a wonderful fishing cove - "

"Would you give Mnementh the co-ordinates?" F'lar asked. "He's worried about your dragon, being very young and perhaps bewildered and lost?"

"He's with me."

"Yes, I know, but I would prefer it if I could see him in the body. Can you give him the co ordinates of the Star Stones here, perhaps? I know you exercised with the Weyrling Master, to fix them."

"I had to take them from Lamath, I see them differently."

"I understand that, brown rider, but we need Maranath to come back - there will be Thread very soon, and he is in danger."

"Dragonriders must fly, when Thread is in the sky."

"Yes. But he is very young, and not yet ready to chew firestone."

He blinked up at the man standing by his bed. This man had been the Star Stone of Pern all his life. He was one to trust.

"Is Mnementh here?"

_- I am here, brown rider of Maranath_

_- can you see the cove?_

_- very beautiful indeed. Show me how the Red Star looks from that cove_

_- we know it for ever so long, fading, and then coming again_

_- I know this. Thank you. I go_

He drew a frightened gasp.

"He's gone without you, Weyrleader!"

"He has a habit of doing that," F'lar said dryly. "Do you know your name?"

"St'ven."

"And your father?"

"He's a fisherman."

"So I understand."

"He's not - a sociable man."

F'lar smiled. "I understand that also. Very well. Thank you, brown rider, for giving us yet more insights into the dragon mind!"

"We are the apex, aren't we, Weyrleader? We have achieved everything?"

"So AIVAS told us, yes. Did you speak with AIVAS?"

"I never interacted with the interface, no. The records are still there, though?"

"Indeed. Now, I suggest you drink some more soup, and get your strength up."

"Thank you Weyrleader. Oh - they come - Lamath is injured! And Sagath! I never meant - "

He gasped in shock because F'lar had leaned in and flicked his cheek, hard enough for him to put a hand up to his face.

"Enough! You are not Maranath! Let go of his mind now, unmesh yourself!"

"Y - yes - yes I will. Um - sorry - "

"Do not be sorry, but be prepared to have to answer endless questions about this!"

St'ven gave an unsteady laugh, unsure whether to laugh or to cry at the enormity of what had been happening. He was uneasily aware that Maranath, and Mnementh pursuing him, had gone not only half way around the world, but back in time.

St'ven was glad to leave the underground sick room. All the weight of that stone above him made him nervous and irritable, and although he tried not to show it, he knew his nurses put it down to his condition. They wheeled him up the slope and out onto the terrace on a quiet summer's day when clouds fled across the sun. He sniffed and looked around.

"Thread?"

"The patrols are due back imminently," Brekke agreed. "Now - there's juice here - you can manage that - I'll find some food for you."

"Thank you."

He sat back and stared out over the yards. There were no dragons in the Weyr at the moment except Maranath who was coming across the ground, and put his head on the terrace. St'ven reached out and scratched his eye ridges.

_- I was very frightened_

_- dear heart - so was I! Thank you for the sight and strength_

_- I think we overdid it?_

St'ven gave a huff of laughter.

_- so they say, with B'ris still abed! Lord F'lar went to see all of them, you know._

_- will you be all right with them from now on? Will they want to fight again?_

_- I don't think so. As soon as I'm healed we can fly again._

_- I have been practising with Histeth. He is a very good teacher. He sings with me, now I have shown him the shape of the songs._

_- you were serious about that? Dragon songs, and the songs of the little brothers?_

_- yes of course_.

St'ven looked round as Brekke brought a plate of meat rolls out to him, and fed Maranath one. Her little fire lizards circled over her head and creeled for food, and St'ven held out a scrap which was taken daintily, the fire lizard settling on the edge of the table to eat.

"Now you've done it! They do love their food!"

St'ven nibbled at a meat roll, looking out to sea.

"They're coming in," he said, and on the word, K'neth appeared below them, shading his eyes as he and Histeth looked out seawards to count the incoming riders.

"A small fall," Brekke said. "This year all the falls seem shorter, but we can't take that as an indication they're tapering off."

"In the Eighth Pass they stopped for nearly two years altogether," St'ven said.

Brekke stared at him in astonishment. "How do you know that? We didn't know until the Old Timers told us!"

"Oh - I expect I heard it somewhere - maybe Lord D'ram mentioned it at Cove Hold - I don't know - "

Brekke put a hand on his arm.

"It's all right. You do get yourself very agitated, don't you, if anyone questions you? As a matter of fact, once Lord D'ram had updated AIVAS about it, he predicted we might have a lessening for a while. All to the good, allowing us to train the young dragons more thoroughly!"

"It must have been dire at the beginning of the Pass?"

"It was at that, youngster," a quiet voice said, and F'lar dropped into another chair, fanning himself with his hat. "I'd forgotten the heat at this time of the year!"

"I've never seen snow lying," St'ven said shyly.

"No more you would, unless you'd been deep inland - did your father fish only at sea?"

"Yes, because the boat was sea-built. But we used to paddle up the rivers, all us youngsters, when it was safe, and explore. Fresh water fish and shell-fish taste quite different, and we could bring back greens for the pot."

"And what about Thread? You lived Holdless, all of you, I can tell that, and it's not a criticism of your parents, for not wanting to be part of Lord Toric's set up?"

"He did try and get my father into his Hold," St'ven admitted. "We left at night, because - well just because."

F'lar nodded.

"Sensible man, especially if he had daughters?"

"I've two sisters and two brothers, all younger."

They broke off to watch the wings coming in to land, to see the crews running out to help, and the Weyrleader gathering his bronze riders to take their reports as the weyrlings hurried to and fro.

"Who's the girl?" F'lar asked.

"Sessel," Brekke replied. "She's been a great help to me - she has healer potential, and I've asked the Weyr healer to take her on and teach her some of the basics of healing."

"Green rider?"

"Yes. No preference as yet, of course."

"Hmm. I wouldn't say that."

St'ven looked where he was watching, and saw Sessel paying special attention to Lamath.

"Is his claw healed?"

"Yes, and no small thanks to Sessel, as I said," Brekke said complacently.

Maranath had turned his head to watch the wings come in, his wing tips stirring the dust.

"As soon as Brekke gives him clearance, Maranath," F'lar said with a smile. "You'll be on your way to being a fighter soon enough."

The grounds cleared, the dragons went for food, and F'lar stood up.

"Mnementh, who constantly surprises me, would like speech with you and your dragon, brown rider," he said formally. "Now the wings are in, and the day is peaceful, I'll give you escort."

"He's only just out of his sick bed, Weyrleader."

"I know that, Brekke, I don't suppose Mnementh wants to overstretch him."

He pushed the wheeled chair along the terrace to where his huge bronze dragon had landed and made himself comfortable on a ledge of rock. Maranath followed obediently and settled next to St'ven, watching the bronze dragon.

F'lar made his way back to the terrace, and St'ven looked warily at Mnementh.

_- you wanted to speak to me, Mnementh?_

_- I did, and this speech we have will be only between we three._

_- I didn't know dragons could shield their thoughts?_

_- there are a great many things we can do that have never been done before. I wish to speak of where Maranath went_

_- he must have gone into my past?_

St'ven glanced at his dragon who did not show any outward signs of fear or distress.

_- this must be so. I met with your father_

St'ven jerked upright and stared at the great bronze dragon.

_- my father? Where? When?_

_- in that very pretty cove, which I presume you will claim for your own when the menace of Thread is no more? As to when - it was in your childhood - you were not present at that meeting, and your father promised silence. But he is coming now._

_- coming here? Now? In this present time?_

_- yes. I persuaded him to do so. You cannot hide forever, brown rider, and nor can he. I am told, and I understand it for myself, that you are a special rider, and have abilities that must be understood and noted down._

_- is he angry with me?_

Mnementh swung his head to survey St'ven, and Maranath nudged his arm so that he slung it over his dragon's neck.

-_ no, not angry at all. _

_- he - um - you know what he is?_

_- he told me a little of himself, yes, and something about what he had lost, and that is why I persuaded him to come here in this time._

St'ven stirred in his chair.

_- I never meant to be around when they Searched._

_- so I am told, but you were destined to be a rider, and the dragons are never wrong_

_- I don't understand that - you have powers over and above the ones the common people know about?_

_- this is true, and has always been true. Even the best and most perceptive of riders - mine included - do not know everything about the bond._

_- Maranath told me all my past was open to him_

_- exactly so, and he went somewhere you had been happy. Emotions are very important to the bond_

St'ven winced.

_- so I found out. I didn't really fight all those boys_

_- no, they fought a brown dragon, and naturally, they lost. Now you must go and rest - he will be here on the evening tide_

St'ven nodded, and allowed himself to be wheeled away, allowing Brekke to check on his injuries, secretly glad to be able to rest in the heat of the day, wondering how long it would be before they allowed him to ride his dragon again.


	10. Chapter 10

The usual copyright disclaimer. All right - drum roll - a few trumpets - we meet St'ven's father at last!

St'ven woke in the early evening and wondered what had woken him. He stared up at the ceiling and then heard the breath of a whistle outside. He rolled out of bed and grabbed at the crutch Brekke had left by the bed, and hopped over to the window.

"Hola, son."

"Pa."

St'ven leaned on the window sill, looking at his father standing outside. The resemblance between them was no more than the shape of the head, the set of their mouths, but it was easy to see they were related.

"Come on the evening tide, Mnementh said?"

"Yes. Lucky Threadfall was light, and didn't come onto me."

St'ven nodded. "I couldn't fly it."

"So I was told. Fighting, eh?"

"Wasn't me, Pa, it was Maranath."

"Look forward to meeting him again. Are you rested? Make your bed and come outside, why don't you?"

St'ven hopped back to his bed and made it neatly, and then came out of the dormitory, and around onto the terrace, sniffing at the scent of dinner cooking.

"Fish, Pa?"

"Took the liberty of bringing in some of the catch, yes. Good fishing, after Thread. Let me look at you. You've done growing at last, I see?"

"Seem to have, Pa, but I got a lot of rounding to get like you."

"Sit down then, and call this dragon of yours."

St'ven sent out a call, and after a moment Maranath appeared in the evening light, and behind him the huge bulk of Mnementh and with him F'lar and K'neth.

"Ah now - that there's a man you can look up to," St'ven's father said.

"I know it, Pa. Both of them."

Maranath brought his head to the level of the terrace, and St'ven's father reached out absently and scratched his eye ridges, running his gaze along his bulk.

"Going to be a big 'un. No wonder they thought you needed building up to match him."

K'neth gave a grunt of annoyance.

"I had no idea they would do that! Are you going to introduce us, brown rider?"

"Um - this is my father Rayden. K'neth the Weyrling Master, rider of brown Histeth, and - and Lord F'lar of Benden, rider of bronze Mnementh."

"Mnementh condescended to tell me he asked you to meet us this evening," F'lar said as they made themselves comfortable. "He seemed to think there is a story to tell?"

"Well, that would depend, would it not? First off, the dragons chose my son to be Searched. I understand that. He was at Southern, not entirely with my approval, but that's neither here nor there."

"If you say so," F'lar said smoothly. "But surely it would depend if he was running away? Or spying?"

"Spying? What should he spy upon?"

"The Lord Holder Toric?"

Rayden made a face. "That one!"

Brekke came out with lights and some food, and Rayden at once came to his feet and set a table for her, took the tray, leaving her looking confused. She looked closely at him.

"I know you - you used to bring fish - you had a fight with Toric!"

"Aye, I did at that. Holdless I've been, and holdless I continue, and no upjumped snickety little snirp tells me any different."

"My, and I wondered where you had your temper from, youngster," K'neth murmured.

Rayden gave a short laugh and sat down again. "Oh aye, I've a hard tongue."

"You met Maranath and Mnementh in the past?" F'lar asked.

"A good ten years agone, yes, and I kept my silence all these years, to see if it would work as they had said."

"Why shouldn't it? The past and present are fixed, surely?"

"There's a thing called a paradox, but I never could get my head around that. So I came to the hour they told me. Seems you want some explanation for the talents my son has."

F'lar sipped at his drink, and took out his pad, consulted it.

"He has long sight and uncommonly short sight - I expect you knew that?"

Rayden frowned at his son. "I knew he'd short sight - uncommonly short?"

"He can't see anything close up, but he uses his other senses to compensate. I sent a request to Master Starsmith Wansor, to see if lenses could be ground fine enough for him to use - he sent me this - "

F'lar produced a wrapped bundle and laid a large round glass set in horn on the table. He slid a page of writing over.

"Try that, youngster."

St'ven picked up the glass, and raised and lowered it over the sheet, and gasped in astonishment.

"Oh! It's words! Look at that! Clear as if they were a hundred paces away! It's wonderful!"

Rayden frowned more heavily.

"You never told me you had that much trouble, son."

"It never bothered me before, Pa, I could use my other senses, like the Weyrleader said. It's only since I've been in the Weyr it's been more difficult. This is fantastic!"

"Master Wansor suggests you sling it around your neck in this pouch, and use it in classes."

"Thanks! Oh, this will make life easier!"

"And these other senses - will he lose them, now he can see?"

St'ven looked across at his father, then at the other two.

"I use Maranath," he said slowly. "I never realised it before - how much I use him."

_- I am your dragon, we are one, of course you will rely on me_

_- far too much, dear heart_

_- it can never be too much for you_

"And he just told you off?" F'lar said accurately, with a rueful smile.

"Yes. I worry about fixing the co ordinates, you see, because I can see them from such a distance, but we're told you have to focus on them close at hand."

"I wish you'd brought those worries to me, youngster," K'neth said at once. "I could've told you it doesn't matter, so long as you have the Star Stones fixed in your mind. Do you take the image from your dragon?"

"Yes. I thought it ought to be the other way around?"

F'lar shook his head.

"Dragons have compound eyes, they can see much more than we can, but it's a different sort of seeing. Maranath has trained himself to see for you, so he's developed a narrowness of vision, Mnementh tells me."

"Oh. Things are so much more different, when you're a dragon rider."

"And I imagine your father would have told you that if you'd asked him," another man said, and D'ram came into view, and stood looking at Rayden.

"Well met, Rayden, son of Layder."

Rayden stared up at the aged dragon rider in silence, and then reached and poured a drink, as St'ven watched in wary astonishment.

"Do you know my father, Lord D'ram?"

"Indeed, do I know you, Rayden?"

"I came forward from the Eighth Pass, son, there being no more to hold me to that time, thanks to Lord Holders and their ilk."

"Still harping back on that, Rayden?"

Rayden scowled at him and proferred the drink.

"That's in the past, and done with."

"You were an Old Time dragon rider?" F'lar asked incredulously. "When did you lose your dragon?"

"A few years into this Pass," Rayden said evenly. "I left Ista Weyr almost immediately after that."

"Where did you go?" K'neth asked. "If you had no family?"

"I had family, even in these times. My father was wrongly accused of theft by a rich Holder with a grudge, and thrown out of his lands, lands our family had held since the days of the Charter and coming north from the disaster at Landing. My father was sent to the Islands, and my mother and three sisters went to join him. I was a dragon rider, I couldn't leave my trust. What would you? There was nothing left of our home, and although I gave them everything I had, it was little enough. My mother and sisters set sail after him in the ship my father had built, and no one ever bothered to ask me about them."

"I would think we assumed they had drowned," D'ram said into the silence.

"Oh, you would assume that, would you? Why should you not assume they made it to the Islands? In those days there were still charts and notes, and decent weather maps as well. I tell you, when I realised how much had been lost and destroyed in the Long Interval, I had more scorn for the Lord Holders."

"They did their best," F'lar said sharply.

"It was a Long Interval, and there had been such before," Rayden said impatiently. "Granted, they thought the Interval would last only the statutory couple of hundred years, as it had in the past, but that was no excuse for the way things were never copied, never talked about, once they realised what was going on. The Lord Fax, for instance, was an example of the best this generation could produce?"

"That's enough!" D'ram said heatedly. "You always had a bitter tongue, and it got you into trouble when you were a Weyrling, and I see it has not improved!"

An uncomfortable silence fell, and they all heard Mnementh.

_- tell us about the brown rider's mother, ex-rider of Goranth_

Rayden jumped and nearly spilled his drink.

_- don't name him - do you think I have forgotten him? My soul and my strength!_

_- I know you have not forgotten him. Tell us about the boy's mother, and your other relatives_

Rayden took a slow sip of his drink, staring at the great bronze dragon.

"My wife is from where my relatives lived, in fact she is one of my relatives, a descendant from my sister Tinira."

"How did you - oh - a boat?" D'ram asked. "Yes, you were always tinkering about in boats."

"I built myself a large sea-going boat after - Goranth - but before that, I had a monetary interest in a couple of fishing boats at Ista."

"You went back _between_," F'lar said suddenly. "Once we'd figured out how to do it, and you'd had practice, you went back - how far did you go? And when?"

"I went back a couple of times, when there was no Thread forecast for a few days. You have to leave yourself time to recover, from that sort of timing."

"Yes, we learned about that," F'lar said ruefully.

"The first time, I went back twenty five years, to the co-ordinates we had from the Lady Lessa's jump, and went to Southern. I saw your place, Lord D'ram, but our times didn't co-incide. I built a boat in Southern, and sailed out to the Islands, and found the cousins I had on those Islands."

"So you knew about the Islanders, and you never spoke of them?" F'lar asked.

Rayden shook his head.

"I took an oath to them, Weyrleader, and I don't intend to break it. St'ven's mother came from the Islands, though, and I've kept my connections with them ever since."

"You went back in time to Southern, though, and made a place for yourself?"

"Yes. The place where my family live now, with the things I found there. Ten years back from the beginning of the Pass, and with no Thread, I could afford to make it secure and safe for later. I didn't know how much later, but as a dragon rider you never know the future when Thread's falling. It was sooner, that's all."

"Goranth died in an unusual Thread fall," D'ram said sorrowfully. "I remember we lost a half dozen dragons and riders in that one awful day. So then you left - you could have petitioned for land on Ista, you know."

Rayden studied him, and then shrugged. "I could have, but why? I knew my place waited me, I knew people on the Islands. I was a loner always, you know that, and I couldn't wait to get away from - from dragons."

"People - criminals - are exiled to the Islands - " F'lar said.

Rayden looked around at all of them.

"What happened to all those people exiled over the last twenty five hundred years on the Eastern Islands? Do their heirs and successors deserve to be exiled - are the sins of the fathers to be visited on the generations following?"


	11. Chapter 11

Rayden stood up and stared around at the men seated at the table.

"Well, I've had my say, I've seen the boy's getting on fine. He has a good dragon, and they're suited - "

"Are you disappearing again?" D'ram asked in a tight angry voice.

"Nothing for me to stay for, is there?"

"I'd like to know more about these Islands where you say you have relatives," K'neth said.

"You'll not get any more information from me than what I've already told you. I need to get the boat out of the harbour before the tide falls too far."

"Pa - tell them I'm all right?"

"I'll do that, son, never fear."

D'ram watched in astonishment and anger as Rayden strode down off the terrace, and then turned to St'ven.

"Is that all you have to say to each other? He's just going to walk out of your life?"

St'ven shook his head.

"He isn't out of my life, Lord D'ram. Just - he doesn't like people, and he doesn't like being questioned."

"Holdless or not, he's still a member of society," K'neth pointed out.

"Oh yes, and he's done his part in the past. When you sent people here, he was watching them, and when Readis made the Dolphin Hall, he was there then as well."

"How could he be?" F'lar asked. "Without a dragon or a runner beast? Amongst the Thread, unguarded?"

St'ven looked uncomfortable. "He's never unguarded against Thread, Lord F'lar. I promise you that, and maybe one day he'll tell you the way of it - but for now - you'll have to let him go - it's sort of like riding a dragon, with my father, but one that doesn't talk a lot."

_- he knows of things forgotten by men,_ Mnementh commented.

_- he has nothing but good in his heart for dragon riders,_ Maranath offered.

"You said a lot of things when you were only semi-concious," K'neth said thoughtfully. "D'you want us to forget that, youngster?"

"I don't think I said that much," St'ven said cautiously.

"Enough for us to be curious," F'lar said. "Now I've met your father - well - if he swore an oath of silence - I doubt if anything mere men could do would alter his ways? I thought not. I'm content to wait, youngster, until he's ready to tell me more, but I can see it would be a difficult thing to release this knowledge across the whole of Pern! I think - a trip to Landing, and examination of the historical records would help. There must be mention in there, somewhere, at the beginning, of those people who left voluntarily for the Islands? The First Pass wasn't that immediate. The Islands are grubbed, I take it?"

St'ven nodded. "Ever since it was known about on the mainland, the islanders would land and take a share of the broods. Never too much, and never from the same place too often."

F'lar shook his head. "They must have been brave men and women, to have done that."

F'lar sat staring over the landscape, his eyes seemingly unfocussed, then he suddenly slapped the arm of his chair and stood up, startling all of them.

"All right! I believe you, all of you. So - we know your origins, brown rider, and the Weyrleader wants you to remain in the Weyr, and P'tar appears ready to accept you into that fledgling wing he is building. Weyrling Master?"

K'neth nodded.

"He'll do, Weyrleader. He mustn't fly _between_ for a while yet, but we'll keep him busy."

St'ven watched them go, D'ram accepting an offer to stay the night, F'lar going to put on his flying gear ready to return to Benden. Maranath turned his head to watch them go.

_- this seeing you do is so strange, with ony one viewpoint_

_- yes I know it must be. To see all around and up and down - no wonder dragons can see Thread and fly so well against it._

_- we are bred to it, it was made into us from the beginnings of the little brothers_.

Lamorna came up behind them and took his wrist, felt his pulse.

"You feel better, St'ven? I want you back in bed for now, but tomorrow you can go back to classes."

"I'd like that. Lamorna - is there a copy of the Charter here in the Weyr?"

The head woman looked startled, and then thoughtful.

"I'm sure there is, printed copies were sent out to all the Holds and Weyrs from the Printers' Hall. I'll have a look - once you are back in bed - and see if I can find our copy."

"Thank you."

He was grateful for her steadying arm, and caressed and kissed Maranath's head before walking unsteadily towards his bed.

"And you, brown dragon, can stop all this worrying and go eat," he heard Lamorna say, and then there was the expected whirl and eddy of dust and air as Maranath took off for the feeding grounds. St'ven was half aware of him eating, of the feeling of contentment a full belly brought as he dozed and then dropped into a deeper healing sleep.

St'ven was in class the next day, enduring the good natured joking of the other weyrlings. B'ris was still in bed with his injuries, he learned, but the others were up and about.

"Don't feel guilty about it," Sessel said sharply, when she saw his expression. "They started it, don't forget, and they should have known better! We all of us know about the bond between dragon and rider, and to attack a dragon rider is stupid."

"Yes'm," St'ven murmured with a smile, and she pretended to swat his head as they settled into their places.

Using his reading glass made classes easier in some ways, although St'ven found to his dismay he had to learn how to write now he could see his hand moving again. K'neth gave him a child's practice book and later he sat with Maranath to practice, amused to see his dragon trace out the letters on the ground beside him, huge but recognisable.

_- can you write your dragon songs?_

_- not with these letters, but they are useful. I can read the things men write._

St'ven twisted to look up at Maranath.

_- why would you want to?_

_- for no reason. Sometimes there is no reason for things. Like flying. I would like to fly with you._

He sounded wistful, and St'ven put his slate away and went to seek permission of K'neth who was working on a leather belt to sell at a gather to be held as soon as there was a reasonable break in Threadfall.

"Fly? Yes, you can fly, but no going between!"

"I know that, Weyrling Master."

"All right. Be back this evening."

"Thank you."

He went to fetch his riding gear, going to ask Lamorna to wrap his mending wrist in wool against the cold of the upper air. She had failed to find the Weyr's copy of the Charter, but had sent a message to Printers' Hall that they required a copy.

St'ven checked his harness and mounted his dragon, and they rose into the air and checked the area around the Weyr for wild beasts. Maranath swung away and headed for the coast and the long low sandy dunes only now beginning to be re-established after the huge wave from the comet strike.

_- that rock hit the Islands, so the dolphins say_

_- yes? Did it do any damage?_

_- the dolphins say a lot of wood and thatch was washed into the sea, but no bodies_.

St'ven tightened his grip on the harness.

_- no bodies? Why should there be bodies, unless there were fishermen?_

_- no fishermen, but the remains of where men lived._

_- men of the Islands? Is it far, to those Islands?_

_- further than we can fly straight. We have promised, and there is a storm coming. I do not like storms_

_- no I don't either_

Two fire lizards popped into the air beside Maranath and began chittering at him, their eyes whirling yellow, and one grabbed at his taloned foot and tugged.

_- what do they say?_

_- there is a ship in danger_

_- is it my father's ship?_

_- they don't know. But they say we must go and rescue it. They say only we can do it_

_- dear heart, we promised not to fly between!_

_- but we must, and you cannot do anything against it if I choose_

St'ven clutched at the harness and then there was the dreadful nothingness of _between_. The freezing cold set up a fierce aching pain in leg and wrist, biting into the healing bone, and then suddenly they were out of _between_ and in the grip of a storm. Rain soaked St'ven's hair and face, the wind whipped at his clothing. Maranath gave a loud furious bugle, and the fire lizards were dancing in the air, pointing their muzzles, and with his far sight, St'ven could see the upturned hull of a vessel, long and narrow, sheathed in something that glittered and shone in the tossing waves.

_- an Island ship! Tthey've capsized!_

_- I see them_

Maranath's powerful wings drove them forwards, and St'ven watched as the people in the water managed to right the boat and haul themselves inboard, but he knew another few heavy seas would capsize them again.

_- hurry, dear heart_

_- they call to me. I am there! Brace yourself, my rider_

St'ven gasped in pain, his head snapping back as Maranath arrowed out of the sky. The dragon's powerful talons gripped the boat and pulled it out of the water. He hovered, adjusting, and St'ven stared down into upturned faces for an instant. Then Maranath had taken them _between_ again, and in three heartbeats of searing cold, they were coming down into the bay holding Cove Hold. Maranath hovered, and then manoevered to set the vessel down on dry land beyond the breaking waves driven by the winds from the edge of the storm system.

People came running, the shipwrecked people were going to be safe, and St'ven knew he was going to be in serious trouble, but he could not have left them to drown.


	12. Chapter 12

Anne McCaffrey owns the copyright of the Pern books, and those are the canon books.

The title of this story is "Weyr and Islands".

I am now going completely outside the framework of the Pern books we have all read, and this part of the story is entirely my copyright!

Give ear to me, you islanders strong

Give ear to me, as I sing

Of the way we have come, the way we are now,

And the way we must live in this land.

Once we were few, once we were lost

Once we had nothing dear

But we made our lives on these islands of ours,

And these are our island homes.

We that were lost, we that were outcast

We have made these islands home

And we hold them against all that would come

To try and take us away.

Rock and stone, glass and sand,

Are all of our heritage now

We make our homes in hidden caves

And live our secret lives.

Now we are many, now we are strong

Now we have much to hold dear

Our island homes are the life we lead

And none shall take us away.

Sallee tipped her head back, clutching at her straw hat as she peered at the rock face. The children gathered around her were calling out in excitement, but she watched with critical care as Davi positioned himself, gripping his toes into the rock and then wielding his hammer and chisel.

Dust and tiny splinters of rock flew up to be lit by the strong sun in a sparkling cloud as he began inscribing the words to describe the dreadful events so recently happened. Then, the skies had spewed an object big enough to slam into the sea and set off earthquakes, minor eruptions, and most seriously of all, a huge wave that had pounded the southern sets of islands and made them uninhabitable for the present time.

"_Fourth Island devastated, Fifth destroyed_," she murmured, reading the words already scribed and ready for carving. "Oh, but it was wicked, wicked. Worse even than Thread."

"Will this tell everyone about it, Sal? Will it?"

She glanced down at Peers, his ten year old face screwed up into anxiety. He had come from Fourth with his family, and taken shelter on this, the largest Island of the group.

"Yes, everyone will be able to read it, years and years in the future. Like they can read all of our history."

Her sweeping gesture encompassed the whole of the glassy slope. Once upon a time, as she was fond of telling the children, half the island had slid into the sea, and left behind this wonderful glassy sheet of rock on which the settlers inscribed their history. Torrential rains had never eradicated the carved words, and never would. The oldest words were sometimes retouched, and in past times had even been filled with black pigment to make them stand out.

"When can we go home?" Peers asked plaintively. "I miss my home."

"I'm sure you do, dear, and the workmen are there now, clearing up, replanting and making it all good again."

"We saved the grub sacks," he said unexpectedly. "There were new ones just brought, and we saved them."

"I didn't know that. Who went for them?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. New blood is good, isn't it? Even if it's only grubs?"

"Yes indeed. Do you still have the bad dreams?"

He nodded solomnly, and then shook his head. "They aren't so bad now."

She squeezed his hand and turned back to look at the rock face. Davi had reached the part about the boiling of the sea, the clouds of steam, the huge fires.

"Are we putting the names up too, Sal?" one of the girls asked.

Sallee nodded. "All those who perished, in the proper place, they'll be remembered."

"Will it come again?"

Sallee shook her head slowly.

"No one can tell you that, love, can they? We didn't expect this one."

"Did it come from - up there?" Peers gestured with his thumb towards the east where the Red Star still hung in menacing fashion.

"From the east, yes, but not from that demonic place," a deep voice said, and Bar stepped up to stand with the children. He had his reed pipes with him and smiled down at the children who forgot the momentous words being carved above them, crowding around him and demanding a song.

"Off you go, Sal," Bar said quietly. "You've had them all morning, take a little time to yourself."

"They need reassurance, Bar."

"So do we all, m'dear, who lived through that upheaval. Now children, let's try and make a song to go with all that banging and hammering, shall we?"

Sal moved away. Bar had been wrecked and found drifting in the Eastern Sea a dozen years ago, middle aged then, and getting older every day, as he was fond of saying. His skill in making and mending musical instruments made him welcome anywhere now. He had a strong singing voice, had revived the Choir, and sang with them.

Sallee started as Dek fell into step. She had not known he was back from the fishing, and was startled and worried by her sudden need to step away from his side.

"That man Bar, he likes children, Sal," Dek offered.

"Yes."

Dek slanted a glance at her. "Why shouldn't he help you with them, then? He doesn't interfere with your teaching of our history, does he? He's been forbidden by the elders to talk about the Mainlanders?"

"Yes, and he abides by that. I don't know - sometimes I think he must know a lot more than he lets on."

Dek shrugged. "In that he's from the Mainlands, yes I suppose that's true. He's useful, so they say, willing to help with most things."

"I had noticed. He was good with the children when the comet struck, he talked them around their fear."

Dek gave a snort. "Huh! There were a good few shrieks and screams about that."

"What did your family do? With those who were afraid?"

"They got over it," Dek replied, and his flat voice seemed to Sallee to have an overtone of brutality.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" Dek asked now, and Sal shook her head.

"I've work to do, Dek."

"Something I can share?"

"Not this time, thanks all the same."

"Can I come calling this evening?"

Sal stopped and faced him. He was tall, and strongly built, but she had known him for many years and had no fear of him for any reason. She was aware that many people already considered them a couple. Dek was a strong well favoured fisherman, successful, but somehow she did not feel the urge to settle with him.

"I wish you wouldn't, Dek, it's starting to give people ideas about - about us."

"Ideas I'd like you to share. Your family like me, don't they? What's not to like, eh?"

He smiled, and she smiled involuntarily in response.

"There's nothing to dislike, Dek, but there's nothing to move me, either. I've told you that."

"There's many a settled couple start with just the liking, Sal," he said seriously.

"Yes I know. Put it down to my foolish girly whims, Dek, like you always used to."

Her voice had an edge, and she smiled again to take the sting out of her words, but his smile vanished.

"You'll come round," he said, and turned away to walk back to his place in the large sandy cove southwards to their right.

Sal watched him go, aware for the first time of a touch of fear about him. What did he mean, that she would come around? Did he intend to pursue her through her family's willingness to see her settled? Or did he mean he would win her around by force?

Sal shivered and jogged away in the opposite direction, towards the smaller cove and its huge hidden caverns. Her family had lived here for generations, safe from the sea's fury most of the time by courtesy of the outlying reef, and the height of the caverns. Now that Thread was falling again the caverns were doubly useful.

"I won't succumb," Sal said to herself as she combed the shoreline for interesting bits and pieces. "He thinks he's sure of me. I'll ask gransire."

Resolved, she hurried across the sand, making sure she walked on the large stones laid to look random but in reality there to disguise any footsteps from aerial surveillance. Dragons did not often come to the islands, unless they were leaving more criminals, but there was always the chance they might overfly the beaches and forests, and it was ingrained habit in the islanders not to leave footprints, not to have fires in the open, and not to cut all the forests to bare fields.


	13. Chapter 13

_**I do love playing in Anne McCaffrey's world!**_

_**I hope there is enough explanation here about the way the Islands were settled.**_

Sallee did not have a chance to ask her grandfather anything for a few days. The fish were biting after Threadfall and all the fishing boats went out after them, hauling in the catch and bringing it back to the caverns to gut and smoke the flesh. Sallee did her part with her family, finding herself stinking of fish after everything was cleaned and put away. A pot of stew bubbled, a piece of preserved meat rather than fish, and she offered to go and cut greens.

"Be careful out there," her mother said automatically, and Sallee nodded as she put on her hat and fetched a basket. The nearest fields were only a step away, but she wore heavy shoes in case any of the Thread had not been eaten by the grubs in the soil.

Picking greens, she glanced up at the sky; Thread was due again in a few hours, and she picked briskly and then hurried back to inform her father storm clouds were building.

"That's good news," he said. "Refill the cisterns, I don't doubt, and disrupt the fall. Do you go and tend gransire."

"I want to ask him about Dek's family."

Her father shot her a penetrating look. "Do you? Why? They came from the south islands on a fishing trip and didn't go back, we all know that."

"Yes, but I just wanted to ask again."

"Take him these sweet roots."

Sallee took the pieces of root, surprised by her father's generosity, and hurried to the small cave where her grandfather lived, alone now, with the comforts he had gathered around him during his long life.

"Is that you, Sallee, lovey?"

"Yes, it's me, gransire."

She slipped her shoes off and padded across the fur rug on the floor, brushing a finger over the finely carved wooden furniture, coming to the big chair where her grandfather sat watching her. This cave, like all the living spaces of the home cavern, was lined with woven reed matting, padded with the pith of an Island plant. It served to keep out the cold of the stone, and could be painted in intricate designs.

Sallee handed over the sweet root and made sure he was comfortable. She picked up the book she had been reading to him and began on a fresh page.

"Your mind's not on it, lovey," he said after a while. "What's the matter?"

"It's Dek."

"Hmm. What about him?"

"He wants me to settle with him."

"With Dek? Now, I never thought you'd agree to that!"

"I haven't. But he doesn't seem able to take _no_ for an answer."

"That family never did take to disagreements. Oh, they disagree with others, but no one's allowed to disagree with them."

"Why is that, gransire? They're only the same as us, ordinary fishing folk."

"They reckon they came from a high up family on that island of theirs."

"They why did they leave?"

"Remember those disagreements I told you about?" He cackled with laughter. "High up families! There aren't any of those on these islands, lovey, like the songs say, we're all descended from robbers and thieves and worse!"

Sallee laid the book on her knee, looking troubled.

"Bar doesn't seem to be one of those?"

"The piper? No, he's an accidental Islander. There've been some over the generations. In my childhood, a family of fishermen were trapped by the reefs and barely made it ashore. They never left, in the end."

"What about those tales, gransire, about raiding the Mainland for people? The tales of the women going over there to - to - have Mainlander children to bring in new blood?"

He sucked on the sweet root, turning his mind inwards, Sallee thought with fondness.

"I never counted those tales as true," he said at last. "Mind you, they might have happened at the beginning, when the Islands were just settled."

"After the First Pass?"

"Yes, after that. Trips south, yes, we made them over the years to collect grubs and more animals. I went on a couple, and shot those felines. Now those were worthy foes!"

He launched into an account of the long ago hunts on the southern landmass and Sallee closed the book and listened, more in hopes of picking up different information than anything; she had heard these tales over and over in her childhood.

"Why didn't the Mainlanders go back, gransire? After leaving the nice warm south?"

"They thought it was dangerous, I expect. Or they forgot. My grandfather's father told it, and it's written in the histories, that men forgot about the south. Too busy grabbing up the land and making people into drudges, he always said."

Sallee took that one with a measure of scepticism; her ancestor had no doubt been a bad man on the Mainland, and had been shipped out here, probably by dragonriders, and left to die.

Except that the island colony had not died out. It had thrived and spread, and made its own bargains with all newcomers. Some of the original settlers might have been criminals and worse, but pitted against nature in the raw, they either died, or they survived and made a life for themselves.

"Why did the women come with them, gransire?" she asked suddenly. "I never thought about that - why did they come as well?"

He smiled fondly at her. "Ah, but you ain't a settled girl, lovey. Men and women just naturally cling together, y'see, and the women want to make the best of it with the man they've chosen."

"I haven't chosen Dek, but he seems to have chosen me."

The old man shook his head. "Takes two to make a contract, m'dear, and I'll have a say on that, you may be sure. Now, you just call me a lad to help me to the necessary, and run off on your own business."

She reached to kiss his wrinkled cheek, and he stroked her arm.

"Don't fret over it, lovey, the one for you is out there, like they say the dragon and the rider are born to each other."

Sallee thought about that as she called one of her brothers to help the old man, and made her way back to the family cavern. She heard Dek's voice before she reached it, and turned off abruptly, ducking into one of the tunnels honeycombing this dead volcanic island. She was not ready to face him down, and she was angry with him invading their home space as if he thought he belonged. She made her way to the docking caverns where the boats were pulled up out of the sea to hide them.

"Why do we hide, if no one ever comes?" she murmured aloud, and the rock walls picked up her whisper and shushed it around the cavern as if mocking her. She walked around to the entrance and peered down to sea level. Waves were racing in and out and she could hear the boom of them on the sheer rockface; the storm was on top of them.

Stepping down to sea level, Sallee used the ropes bracketed to the stone walls to aid her descent, and stood looking out of the mouth of the cavern. She loved the sea in all its moods, and these fierce storms satisfied her in some way she did not understand. To her right the reef stood out of the waves like a line of jagged teeth. It broke the force of the waves so that they raced northwards to reach the deep cavern where she stood watching. Inside the reef lagoon enough water slopped over to disturb the surface and bring freshness to the green waters.

She could see rain hissing down, like Thread, yet utterly unlike it. They had no dragons to protect them, but the caves were of rock, and the land well seeded with grubs. If a fisherman was caught out on the open sea, he would slip into the water, invert his boat, and the metal or glass on the hull would serve as his protection until the Fall was over, with enough air in the buoyant hull to keep him alive.

Sallee watched the storm pass over, and the seas become calm, and only then did she retrace her steps to the main cavern. Dek was still there, but she moved to the other side of the area, nodding to him, not going to join him in the indeterminate ground of courting couples, but seating herself with two cousins and offering to help wind the wool from the hanks they were sorting.

Dek stood up as if about to come over, but her father gave a warning cough.

"You'll be wanting to get back to your own place, now the storm's over, young man," he said in his deep voice. "We won't keep you longer."

"Thank you for your hospitality," he said, obviously grudging it, and cast her a look she could not interpret, but it sent a shiver of warning through her as she turned back to the task in hand.


	14. Chapter 14

_**The usual disclaimer. Thanks for all the reviews - glad you like my story!**_

Sallee awoke the next day with a sense of foreboding. She could not shake it off; she lay huddled in her blankets and tried to define her mood. Usually when this happened it was a warning, because like many of the Islanders Sallee was empathic. She ran through her mind what she would do today; teaching the children, checking on the written records to match the Stoneface History. _Dek_ she thought, and she knew that was what was causing her unease.

What had he said in the cavern last night when she was absent? Had he attempted to inveighle himself into the family? She knew two of her aunts thought him a well favoured and well set up young man with prospects.

Reluctantly, Sallee came out of bed and went through to the main cavern to eat her meal. Her father looked up from his place, and nodded to her, gesturing to the seat by his side.

"Come sit, lovey," he said, and she slid onto the bench by his side, seeing he had letters by his plate.

"Uncle Stasic has written from Second Island," he announced. "Seems there's a newbie come there, been working his way up through the Islands since release."

"How long since he was released, pa?"

"Four or five years. Uncle Stasic is fretful over him. Thinks he's been writing things down."

Sallee read the letter he handed her as one of the cousins brought her a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge.

"He seems harmless, pa? He says he's a harper - Uncle says he can play and sing, but doesn't sing any Mainland songs."

"He writes things down, though. I want you to go and look him over."

Sallee lowered the letter and took a sip of tea.

"Me, pa? Why me?"

"Because you know your history, and can check out what he says," her father replied. "You've nothing more to do today?"

"Only the usual routine. Dek - "

"You can leave that young man to me. He was acting last night as if you'd agreed to settle with him?"

Sallee stared at him, aware of her face heating. "I know. He acts that way with me, as well."

She repeated the conversation of the day before, word perfect, and with Dek's exact intonations, and her father nodded.

"That's much what I thought. You go and sort out this harper man, lovey, and I'll deal with Dek."

"His family came here - "

"And I'm Leader of this Island," her father replied. "Go and see if anyone has any letters for Second Island before you go. And be careful through the Tunnels, Thread's scheduled for midday today."

"Yes pa."

Sallee finished her meal and then leaned over and pecked a kiss onto his cheek before hurrying off to change her shoes and throw a jacket over her dress.

Her mood had lightened considerably, but there was a still a foreboding there, and after she had gathered up the letters and parcels to go, she came out of the cavern and encountered Dek.

He scowled at her and took a pace forward.

"You ran away from me last night," he said. "I don't like that."

"I was busy on my own things. You don't own me, Dek, and never will. Even a settled couple don't own each other."

"I've made my interest clear."

"And I've made my disinterest clearer," she responded at once, her tone sharpening. She took a pace back, however, at the look on his face. "There're other girls, Dek, lots of them, who might be happy to settle with you. I'm not one of them."

He stared at her, still scowling, and Sallee saw his father coming over towards them. Dek's father was a man she could not like, he always stressed her with his argumentative voice.

"I've things to do," she said briskly. "Good day to you, Fisherman."

She turned and almost ran, seeing her father coming out of the cavern with two of his Councilmen, and beckoning Dek and his father. Sallee put on another spurt of speed and brushed through the narrow overhung leafy corridor leading to the long stretch of the northern black sand beach and the Tunnels.

She came out of the trees after casting a careful look around, habit ingrained into her.

"Why d'you always do that?" Bar asked in his deep voice and Sallee jumped and looked around, seeing him seating on a rock with his pipes in his hand.

"Do what?"

"Look before you step into the open."

"Thread's scheduled for midday."

"I know, I've been warned. Where are you off to?"

"Second Island. There's a man there - you could come too?"

"Me? Am I allowed off the Island?"

Sallee stared at him in amazement. "Of course you are! You served your time on Impounding, didn't you? You learned what we wanted of you, and you've not put a foot wrong - have you never been off Main Island?"

Bar shrugged. "It's an interesting place, there's a lot of people to get to know, and somehow you get into a routine - teaching a little here, piping a tune or two there - and you'll not deny I've done my part for the new bloodline?"

His eyes were twinkling, but Sallee saw a slight flush coming to his cheeks. The amelioration of the bloodlines was something else everyone was quite open about on the Islands, but she could see he was uncomfortable with it.

"Three children," she said now. "That's a fair share, Bar. Come with me to Second?"

He rose to his feet and picked up his woven conical hat.

"I'd be glad to m'dear. Thanks."

They walked down to the Tunnels and Saska came out of his guard room.

"Hola, Sallee. Going through? Who's this? Oh yes, the piping man Bar."

"Can he come, Saska? Nothing to stop him is there?"

"Not from my place, Sal. You should get through before Thread, but Tena will warn you if you're too close in time."

"Thanks, Saska. Anything for me to take from you?"

"No, I thank you."

They walked through the guard room and Saska opened the wooden doors at the other end. Cool moist air flowed up to them from the dark depths. Saska uncovered two glowbaskets and handed them over. Bar peered nervously into the darkness as he took one of the glows. Sallee shouldered her satchel and held out a hand.

"Take my hand, Bar, there's no shame in being uneasy about this place."

He nodded and took her hand, and they walked down the slope. The rocky floor was carefully roughened to aid walking, and Bar held the glow up to examine the ceiling.

"Fantastic," he said softly. "I've never seen the like, not in all my years on the mainland."

"You wouldn't have done," Sallee agreed. "No newbie ever has."

"Stone blocks - is this volcanic rock? Yes it must be, see it glittering. And the joints sealed by molten glass?"

"Yes. Black glass we have enough of, and to spare, with all the volcanic sand on the Islands."

"There's more tunnels, then?"

"Oh yes." Sallee moved confidently forward, liking the feel of his hand in hers.

"Amazing," Bar murmured. "This join - that goes all the way around?"

"That's the end of a section. The first section was made, and the end plugged, and it was pushed into the bay. Then they sealed the next section to it and pushed it onwards, making more until it reached the next Island. Divers made sure it was secure with rock buttresses, and those have become home to seaweeds and reef creatures, and anchored it to the seafloor."

"You could have set up a ferry? A boat?" He glanced down into her face, shook his head and answered himself. "You risk being overlooked in a boat. But your fishermen go out?"

"Fishermen are all the same throughout the world, and who looks twice at a fishing boat?"

Bar nodded, although he forebore to mention their boats were not like anything he had seen on the mainland.

They started on the upward slope and saw daylight ahead of them.

"How did they know we were coming?"

"There's a signal line running through. Saska signalled two people coming. Tena has opened the doors this end."

They emerged into a similar guard room at the other end, and Tena, an older more stooped man, peered at Bar.

"Who's this, Miss Sal?"

"He's Bar. He came a while ago, but he's not been off Main Island yet."

"Ah, the piping man! There's nice for us. The wards are up, take care now."

"We will. These are for you."

Sallee handed over some letters and a parcel of food, and Tena closed the glow baskets and began closing the tunnel doors. Sallee and Bar moved into the shelter of a glass-roofed walkway.

"More glass," Bar said.

"Yes. These panels slide closed when there's Thread - listen - there's the alarm - give me a hand here."

She unhooked the plaited closure ropes and began walking, and as she did so, slid the glass panels closed. Two men came running lightly from the other end, and they met as the sky began to darken with a silvery grey sheen. Bar stared up at it and began to shudder, and one of the men took his arm.

"There's nothing to fear," he said. "Don't look up, man, tip your hat down and look at the ground. We're right here with you."

Nonetheless all four of them quickened their steps as the hail of Thread came writhing down, striking the glass with plinking tinkling noises, and sliding down to the ground where it burrowed.

"Underneath," Bar said in a faint voice.

"Fused rock," Sallee said, trying to put assurance into her voice. "It can't get in, Bar, believe that if you believe anything."

"I believe it," he said, obviously gulping down nausea and then they had reached the main cavern of the Island and could take breath and calm themselves.


	15. Chapter 15

_**I do love playing in Anne McCaffrey's worlds. Some more explanations of the islands. Thanks for the speculation and reviews. I hope to be able to keep posting at regular intervals, but from Monday I start writing NaNoWriMo as a priority.**_

Sallee brought Bar to the shelter of the main cavern, and found him a drink and something to eat. His hands were still trembling and he shook his head in wonder.

"To see it falling like that - safe as we were - I've never been out in full sight of Thread before."

"You'll have seen it before, though?" Sallee asked.

"Oh yes, from the safety of a Hold! That was - something to be worked on in my mind, y'know, before I can make a tune out of it."

"You can make a tune out of anything," she said with a smile. "Will you come and be introduced to Uncle Stasic?"

"I'd be delighted. This cavern is much like the ones on all the Islands? I still haven't worked out how you warm the walls."

"Wool padding and plaited reed," she said, as she tidied the plates and a young girl came hurrying to fetch them.

"Hello, Sal," she said shyly.

"Dirna? You've shot up this last year! How's the legs?"

"Much better now, thank you."

She bobbed a nervous curtsy to Bar and took the tray of cups and plates.

"Injured, was she?" Bar asked.

"She was very ill, they thought she'd never walk again, but massage and exercise have helped."

They moved out of the first cavern, deeper into the complex, and Sallee wondered what Bar really thought of their places. When questioned by her father, he had said only that the Mainlanders used tapestries and thick paint to warm their walls, although he had said, puzzlingly, that Fort and Benden did not need such things, being warmed by the earth. Sallee had thought the northern lands had no volcanoes, that that was why they had been settled after the disaster of Landing.

"Uncle Stasic - I've parcels and letters for you!"

She was folded into the grip of a large man with a mass of brown curls, unlike his brother, yet uncannily like Sallee.

"There's my girl! It's been a good few weeks since you've been over, m'dear. Been busy with your lessons and such like? And who's this?"

"Bar, the piping man. He's not been off Main Island before."

"Content with just that space?"

"It's hardly small," Bar said with a smile. "It must be all of ten klicks long, and half as wide."

"Yes, you're probably right. You'll be wanting to talk to the harper, Nadil he calls himself."

He led the way to a cavern lit by large clear glass windows stretching from floor to ceiling, as was usual in a teaching room, but today the blinds were drawn against the sight of Thread, and the children were playing musical chairs. The music came from the gitar of a young man seated by the teacher and watching the children even as his fingers flew over the strings in a medley of nursery tunes.

Sallee and Bar stood watching as the game finished, the winner was rewarded, and Nadil stood up and came over, laughing with the children and patting them on the head. He followed them out into a smaller room, looking wary, Sallee thought, as well he might if he had been writing down things about the Islands.

"This is my neice Sallee, daughter of the Leader of the Main Island," Uncle Stasic said when they had seated themselves around a table. "Bar, who was a Mainlander but wrecked himself and was rescued."

"Seems you rescue a lot of people out here," Nadil said with a smile. "I wouldn't have thought so many fishermen went missing."

"You'd be surprised," Uncle Stasic said in a calm voice.

"How long have you been here, Bar?" Nadil asked eagerly.

"Long enough to learn some wisdom, which it seems you haven't? They're awful wary of you, young man."

Nadil scowled at him.

"You don't belong here, any more than I do."

"Oh, I belong now," Bar said with a nod. "I don't say I didn't think of getting away in that long year of Impoundment, most of us did, and talked about it as well, but what's the use? I don't know the sea, and although I might know the direction of the currents, it's a long long way to land from here."

"You could go north and up onto the continent, and from there find your own old place," Nadil said. "These ring islands form a chain from Southern to Northern."

Bar stared at him, then at Sallee's wary face, and across at Uncle Stasic who was giving nothing away.

"I know my geography as well as you, Nadil," he said at last. "Now why don't you hand over those hidden notes to these good folk, and explain to them why you're making them? Unless you're a spy for Harper Hall?" He cocked his head. "You don't look like their usual undercover people?"

Nadil flushed. "I never made it to Harper Hall," he said gruffly. "I was going, my hold harper sent a note about me, but then I was playing at a wedding, and there was a storm. It took half the village into the sea, and I was swept away. I don't know - I can't remember a lot of that time. Just flashes - the sea - the sun - I was lucky not to float into Threadfall."

"You were indeed," Uncle Stasic said. "We have patrols out looking during these times, more so than during an Interval. I'm disturbed about you, young man, and the piping man has picked up on that. I don't sense anything evil in you, just an over-eagerness, maybe. Sallee?"

She shook her head, watching Nadil. "He doesn't ring entirely true, Uncle, but there's no malice in him. As you say, just over-eager."

Bar and Nadil stared at them in astonishment.

"You can read minds? Like dragonriders?" Nadil blurted.

Uncle Stasic stiffened. "You mind your tongue, youngster," he snapped. "No, we can't read minds, but the same skills that were bred into dragonriders were bred into us, and we can tell - some of us are better than others - the general feel of a person."

"That's why you keep us at Impoundment," Bar said with a rueful smile. "Assessing us as well as teaching us!"

"Yes."

"Some people stay there?" Bar ventured. "Pardon me if I step where I can't go, sir, but some people surely, you cannot allow into the Island life?"

Uncle Stasic sighed and nodded. "This is true. But they're comfortable enough on that Island, there's a good living to be made."

"And they can widen the gene pool," Nadil said, flushing hotly.

Sallee glanced at her uncle, amazed he had kept his temper so long. He was famed for his hot temper, but at the moment he was calm enough, his hands clasped over each other on the table top.

"It's important to keep the bloodlines open," Bar said. "What did you call it? A gene pool? I never heard that expression before."

"It's one AIVAS used."

This time Uncle Stasic did react. He came straight to his feet, his chair crashing over, and Sallee jumped nervously as the door opened and two men came in. Sallee recognised them as men who were charged with keeping order, and they carried their truncheons at the ready now.

"Trouble?" they asked, and Uncle Stasic breathed deeply and shook his head.

"A name - out of the past. Thank you, both."

Bar watched them go out and close the door. "Guards, sir?" he asked in a mild voice.

"More to keep people away than keep you in," Sallee said in a low voice, watching her uncle as he breathed heavily, getting himself under control, turning to pick up the chair and reseat himself.

"AIVAS," he said to Nadil. "What do you know of AIVAS?"

Nadil glanced uneasily around at all of them, not speaking, and Uncle Stasic leaned forward.

"In here, young man, you will speak. Out there - " he pointed to the stone walls. "You will not, unless you wish to spend your life in isolation? I think not. You seem a gregarious sort of man, one who likes to be with people. Playing your gitar alone on a beach with only the dolphins for company might not suit you."

Nadil sat in frowning thought, scratching a pattern on the table top, then raised his head.

"I kept my tongue on Impoundment Island," he admitted. "I did what your people wanted, I adapted myself to your ways. But I didn't realise - I didn't understand - where a lot of you came from."

"Descendants of robbers and criminals," Uncle Stasic nodded. "Over the generations, the dragonriders have kindly dumped the scaff and raff of society onto these islands. Early on, we developed a method of sorting them, and that has lasted to the present day."

"What - what's AIVAS, Uncle?" Sallee asked. "I don't recall the word?"

"We call it the computer interface at Landing, neice," Stasic replied. "AIVAS is what it is. But how, after all these lost generations, do you know of it, young man?"

"It was found again," Nadil said. "After you came here, Bar, Jaxom, Ruatha's Lord Holder, and his white dragon Ruth found Landing again. They cleared it and AIVAS spoke again."

Uncle Stasic has been staring at him and looked at Bar who shook his head.

"I've never known of that, sir. I knew the dragonriders had begun to visit Southern, they went back in time to mature a clutch, you'll see that in my notes, and in some others, perhaps? But that was as much as I ever knew. Landing - that was a place of myth - even the Harper Hall that kept all the records discounted it."

"They found it, and they were going to end the menace of Thread," Nadil muttered. "I never believed that, Thread is just something that comes and goes. What could change that?"

Uncle Stasic locked his hands together and Sallee knew he wanted to hit something. His feelings were beginning to overwhelm her, and he must have seen it, because he stood up, paced away and back, drawing deep breaths, calming himself before he sat down and addressed Nadil again.

"You never told this to the Historians," he said, his voice a furious whisper. "I've had all your notes delivered, and you never mentioned that. You gave us generations, and we knew of them, you gave us tales of the Pass, and we knew that. But you never mentioned Landing. Or a white dragon! What sort of sport is that? It is full size? Rideable? A Lord Holder cannot be a weyrman!"

"He isn't. Ruth is small, but he's perfectly formed. AIVAS called him the most important dragon on Pern."

Uncle Stasic drew a ragged breath and made a gesture.

"All right. This is now way too big for me. I'm going to call a full Council to hear everything you have to tell us about Landing."

"Did you know about it?" Nadil asked in wonder. "How did you know?"

"They've been abandoning people out here since the Second Pass," Bar said quietly. "And in First Interval, Nadil, everyone still knew of their beginnings. It was only in the Second Pass that things began to go wrong, machinery became inoperable, spare parts couldn't be made any more. Landing was closed off by volcanic activity, records were inaccessible, and suddenly for fifty years no one had time to remember."

"And when they did, it was all forgotten," Sallee said as quietly. "But we knew, and we kept the knowledge, and added to it as more people came, wrecked, dumped, forgotten."

Uncle Stasic sighed and rubbed his face.

"I wish Rayden the fisherman were here. We've not seen or heard from him in two or three years, he was going to sail around Southern, he said, map it all again."

"There are maps at Landing, so it's said," Nadil said sullenly.

"Have you seen them?"

"No."

"Then I won't believe you know of them. I want to know rumour, but I also want to know your eye witness accounts. I wonder if the dolphins could bring Rayden back more quickly? I'll have to think about that."

He stood up and gestured to the door.

"You, young man, are under guard. Sallee, your aunt will welcome you, and the piping man, no doubt. I need to call the Council, I'll see you later."


	16. Chapter 16

_**The usual disclaimer. I've counted the remaining chapters, and I think I can keep even WhiteRaven satisfied with the regular uploads!**_

Sallee made her way back to Uncle Stasic's home. Aunt Sodor was there, and looked keenly at her.

"Trouble, neice? That new harping man, perhaps? He's a sly one, and no mistake."

"I think he's just - young - " Sallee said with a rueful smile as she kissed her aunt. "What can I help you with, auntie? It isn't safe to return just yet."

"I should think not, and you not having been here in weeks. There's a budget of news to catch up on, and young Dirna aching to talk to you. She's been stitching and sewing at things - wants to show you that."

Sallee smiled. "I'll be pleased to see whatever she's been doing - it took her mind off things?"

Her aunt laughed as they swung the kettle onto the hob and prepared the pot for tea.

"Indeed and it did, and a good few people joining her at the stitching! It was a new thing, you see, to make pictures out of cloth and leaf. How did you think of it?"

Sallee flushed. "I did not, auntie, it was all in the written down things of the first people. How they made new out of old, and I just thought - if the pieces could be spared - "

"Our first people are their first people as well," her aunt said gnomically and bustled to and fro between the laid table and the larder. Sallee readied the tea pot and fetched down mugs as her cousins came in.

"Smelled the tea, coz!" Robsin said, giving her a quick pecking kiss. He looked keenly at her. "Something troubling you? Something about that kiss?"

"Oh - only there's a fisherman over on Main thinks he has the rights on kissing me."

"Hmm. Takes two to make a relationship, coz."

"I know." She shook her head and they did not tease her. She was grateful for that, because she grown up alone, not a single child, but in an age bracket when a lot of children her age had died of a fever that had swept the Islands. Perhaps that was why she liked the history, she mused, as they sat and chattered and caught up on their news.

"That man you brought - he's not got an eye for you?" Sibon asked suddenly. "He's a mite old?"

"Bar? Yes, he's middle aged, but I like him - he's restful - deep, though, very deep, difficult to read sometimes."

They heard the klaxon sound a double note and everyone relaxed and drew deeper breaths, and Sibon and Robsin left to join the clearance crews. Thread might not get a foothold on the Islands due to the rocky ground and the protection of grubs, but the ground crews still went out to check.

"No matter how often you hear it, it always helps to know it's passed over," her aunt said briskly as they washed up. "Now off you go and find Dirna and the others - they'll be glad to see you."

"I've never known anything except Pass time," Sallee said abruptly. "You remember before, auntie? In the Interval?"

"Yes I do, lovey, and very good times they were. And they'll come again, be assured of that! Ten - maybe fifteen years of this Pass and then we can walk free again."

Sallee took a plate of buns and went to find the sewing group. She had been doubtful at first at introducing the skill, because although the women of the caverns knitted and stitched, and made the padding for the walls, this precision piecing and overlaying of cloth and leaf to make a landscape pattern was quite different.

"Sallee!" Dirna waved a welcome and Sallee entered the room and stared in astonishment at the murals hanging on the wall. Clearly unfinished, yet it was like the stonewall history come to life, with panels of lively people dancing and singing, others showing the rain of Thread, others again showing the fishing boats with their outrigger stabilisers out on the ocean.

"It's wonderful!" she said as she came to examine it. "Oh! As you get closer - it all dissolves - you can see the pieces. It's like magic!"

The women gathered in the room were eager to show her, and she realised these were women without a proper purpose in the caverns, who usually spent time helping out where they could, not on the edge, not excluded, but without close family ties.

"We've been learning about the leaf we use," Dirna said. "By stripping and soaking, and then plaiting it, we can get a good length of thread. Or you can layer it and press it and glue it."

She was bubbling over with the new knowledge, and Sallee watched her demonstrating.

"Have you written it down, Dirna?"

"Yes, and passed it to the Historians for their ledgers," the girl said. "Leader said I should do that, so it wouldn't ever be lost, like the Mainlanders lost their history."

"Speaking of Mainlanders," one of the other women put in. "What about that fancy young harper, eh? Gladdens the eye, don't he?"

They cackled with laughter and nudged each other, and Sallee smiled at them and teased them back, pleased to be a part of this group for a while, until they were called to a meal.

She found Bar at the table, and sat with him. He poured her some fruit juice and gestured to the outer walls.

"I'm glad Threadfall's over for now. Kind of knots my stomach, to think of it. Those grubs - they come from Southern, do they?"

"Yes, they were developed down there, but we've been in the habit of going to harvest them."

"With the help of that Rayden the fisherman?"

"He's a strange one as well," Sallee admitted. "He's been around all my life time as a name, I've never met him. He sends news up the chain, you see, but it's as piecemeal as the news we get from new comers. He sails the oceans of the world, a restless sort of man."

"The trouble with Threadfall is - there's not the opportunity to be restless," Bar mused. "See, we're all taught about keeping under shelter, like you do on the Islands, but we have the dragons - we shouldn't be afeared to be out and about during a Pass, but it's been deeply ingrained."

"We don't have dragons, so rock and glass are our guardians, with the grubs that eat Thread and protect the plants."

"Miraculous. Maybe I've been used to counting on dragons to save me, rather than grubs, eh?"

She glanced up at him. "You've a song coming on, haven't you?"

He laughed. "You can read me well, m'dear. Yes, just a little jotty tune I thought up. I ain't the best at it - that would be Menolly the harper girl - after the Master Harper - both of them can make tunes and songs that stay in your mind."

"Bar - "

He held up a hand. "No, no, I don't speak of it, you know I don't. But seeing young Nadil - just brought all the memories back for a while. They'll go again, I'll settle."

Sallee watched his face. "You can't let go of them," she said at last. "No one can. We cannot let go of our history either, but now - I'm not sure - I've this sense, you see, and I thought it was Dek disturbing me, with his wanting me without my consent. But I think it's more than that. Bar, I think we live in troubled times."

He poured her a drink and toasted her with his own.

"I think we live in _changing_ times, m'dear," he said. "Change comes to everything - your own people as well as the Mainlanders. If they have truly found the first things the colonists brought, then change will be radical, and we'd best be alert to make sure we don't get mown down or left behind."


	17. Chapter 17

_**The usual disclaimer about the worlds of Anne McCaffrey. Some more clues about the Islanders in this one.**_

Sallee and Bar did not get away that day. They stayed the night in the caverns, and took part in an impromptu dance and some singing. Nadil was not on view, Sallee noted, but she did not worry about it, because her Uncle would have it in hand. No more than the first Charter did their own Bill of Rights state a man could be done away with for his thoughts.

There was Thread falling early the next day, most of it falling out to sea, and the fishing fleet launched as the ground crews searched the grounds of the Islands for any patches not consumed by grubs.

Bar stood watching them, and shook his head at Sallee's enquiring look.

"Can't get over it, m'dear, to see the leaves just a bit holed and scorched like that, and the crops intact."

"I know. It's one of the things that keeps people longest at Impoundment, you know."

"I'd believe it. Now - your young friend Dirna is coming with us to show us these quilts? And the ways of making them?"

"Yes. Are you coming, Bar, or are you needed for the Council meeting?"

He shook his head. "None of my business, and your Uncle took my statement down, and sent for the history I'd related at the beginning. In my case, they'll match."

Sallee looked alertly at him. "You don't approve of Nadil?"

"He's a silly young thing, but he'll learn."

"You don't really think he's a spy?"

"Hush now, not in front of the others."

Dirna had joined them with her bundle, and Robsin was coming as well, carrying news and letters to the other Island.

"Let's be moving," he said briskly. "Can't hang around too long."

They entered the glass tunnels and Bar glanced overhead, realising for the first time that the roof was painted. He stopped and peered at it, and then at Robsin.

"Camouflaged as leaf and twig?" he asked, and Robsin grinned and nodded.

"There's glass all over the Island, piping man, and most of it don't reflect the sunlight, and most of it's painted in - what did you call it - camouflage? Good word, that one."

"An old one,"Bar replied. "Nothing wrong with the old words where they'll fit, I always think."

The panels were still closed, but air was venting through from the fans set up at either end, and they made good time. Sallee was astonished when Bar slid his hand into hers as they entered the stone tunnels under the sea, and he winked at her.

"Wouldn't want me afraid, would you, m'dear?"

"Oh - you!"

But she laughed and walked with him and greeted Saska at the tunnel end.

"Any Thread damage?" Robsin asked.

"Not a bit. We had that grub die-off a few years ago, but it seems the farming men have sorted it, and regrubbed, and we're grateful to the Fourth Islanders for bringing fresh stock to breed in."

Robsin lingered to talk about it, and the other three set off towards the caverns. Suddenly Dirna gave a warning hiss, and as an echo, the klaxon gave out five dissonant notes.

Sallee froze, and then led the way at a trot to a stand of trees.

"Stand here, and don't move," she told Bar. "Right up close - squeeze into the bark."

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Dragons," Dirna whispered, peering up through the canopy. "Dragons bearing men."

"Think them, Dirna," Sallee said, also peering up.

Bar did not dare move, but he too could see the shapes in the sky. Dragons, he thought, come from the Mainland to rescue him. Then he laughed silently at himself, because no doubt they had had held his memorial service long since.

"What are you doing?" he asked Sallee.

"Thinking them towards Imprisonment," she answered, her teeth clenched as she gazed upwards.

Bar wanted to question, wanted to find out more, but something about the intensity of the gazes of the two girls stopped his voice. He clung to the tree and waited, and then Sallee let out a breath.

"They've gone," she said. "Gone the right way, as well. That was a powerful one, Dirna."

"The elders say all these dragons are powerful, Sal, more powerful than in older times."

Sallee nodded. "They're bigger, as well. It's been a long time since they were made, so of course they must be breeding larger."

"You know they were made?" Bar asked.

"It must be so, becaues as the first records state, the colonists bred them as a defence against Thread. Grubs were an afterthought, but effective. We couldn't have survived here without the grubs."

"They were bred in Southern."

"And are there not ships and brave fisher men to go and cull them?" Robsin asked, coming up to them. "Well done, piping man, not to distract us."

"You also - deflected - the dragons?"

"Yes. That was a sizeable group - something's happened on the mainland to send such a group over here. Ah well, we'll learn about it when the Historians go down to Imprisonment and question them."

He led the way to the caverns, but Sallee glanced at Bar who looked unusually thoughtful, and disturbed.

"You can ask my father," she said quietly as they filed into the caverns. "He'll tell you if he thinks it needful to know."

"Thank you. Well now - here are the children!"

His voice had changed, she thought, was lighter and merrier, but she noted the crease in his brows did not go away as he described his experience in the tunnels and the glass walkway, making it a laugh and a joke to the children who were so used to being under the cover of glass.

Sallee did not see Dek that day, and wondered about it, and eventually went to find her father. He was scribing down notes of the Threadfall, and nodded to her to sit down.

"I sent him and his family away," he said to her unvoiced query. "There's an Island not a few miles from here, with a good cove for the boats, and some decent lands for crops."

"What - did he go willingly?"

"No. But he went."

Sallee did not speak for a while, then she reached over and touched his hand.

"Thank you," she said in a low voice. "I could have denied him always, but I think he would have found a way around it."

"I'm certain sure he would, but he won't want to bother any more," her father said with finality, looking across at her. "I'll not have that sort of disruption, the sort I'd expect from a newly Imprisoned, from a man descended on these Islands for generations. Bad blood in there, and I've sent for the lineages."

Sallee had paled, then flushed, but she did not look away from him.

"I'm sorry - that it came to this."

"So'm I, lovey, but it can't be helped. Now then - how did this new harper man seem?"

Sallee told him about it, and he listened to the cadences in her voice as she recited the interview.

"Hmm. Careless, and young, would you say?"

"Yes. I think Uncle Stasic will be able to teach him better ways. He's a good singer and player - they need him over there to help out."

"As we need our own piping man, eh?"

"Yes. There were dragons, father."

"I heard the klaxon. Big powerful beasts, those were. I'm hoping these newly Imprisoned men can tell us more about the sizes of the beasts. Those were browns, I saw them through the viewer."

"It's supposed always to be browns that bring the prisoners?"

"Yes. Wing seconds, they call them."

She went to fetch him tea and some cake, knowing he would spend the rest of the day on his administration, working on the accounts books, checking the inventories. They were more than half way through the Pass, and although food was not scarce, yet it had begun to be rationed at the beginning, and surpluses stored away. They still planted and harvested, but of necessity on a lesser scale in a Pass, and used the glass houses more than during an Interval.

"I think Bar wants to speak to you about - things," Sallee said as she returned.

"He knows where to find me. Run along now, lovey, and do something new for yourself. Maybe join with young Dirna, eh, at this peicing and scrapping?"

"You don't mind if we use up resources?"

"They'll all be recycled eventually, if not by us, then by our descendants - what is it? You shivered - what did you see?"

"Nothing I can put a finger on," she replied, gazing over his head, her eyes unfocussed, then she shook her head and looked back at him. "Just - our descendants, you said, and I saw - or I thought I saw - dragons on the Islands."

His lips tightened, and he came and took her into a hug.

"Don't fret over it lovey, nor over this gift of yours. You know you've seen things in the past, and they've come out nearly the same, but with enough difference for us to know your sight isn't accurate."

"Dragons on the Islands, though?"

He shrugged as he let her go. "Times change, men change, everything changes, lovey. Now scoot off and enjoy yourself."


	18. Chapter 18

_**As usual, I only claim my original characters, not the world we play in. I hope I'm getting the sequence and timing of events right - I don't have the books any more, although there is a lot of info out there on the net.**_

Bar sat watching the men cleaning and mending in the dock cavern. There was a great deal of undercurrent of unease, he thought, as he scribed down a few notes of music from the sound of the waves and the men talking, the creaking of the masts and hulls. Great bolsters woven of palm fronds stopped the boats fretting against the stone quays, and once again he marvelled at the ingenuity these people showed with the few materials they had to hand, stone, plant fibre, sand, animal wool and skin. And yet, they had no less and no more than the people on the mainland.

"Give us a tune, piping man," Valin said quietly from behind him, and Bar played a quick medley of dance tunes, knowing Valin had not moved from his side, watching the fishermen.

"You'll be wanting to go out on the tide?" Bar asked when he paused for breath.

"We'll do that, yes. The fish will be shoaling, Thread or no, at this time of year."

Bar nodded. "I've seen that. As if - the rythmns of this world do not always heed our near neighbour?"

"You'd know about that?"

"I would not, beyond what I surmise, Leader. The Red Star can't have been circling Pern through all its history, because then defences would be fully developed and men wouldn't have had to enhance them. But since we've been here, we've made a difference, and the plants and animals can grow properly for the most part."

He played another fast reel, then lowered the pipes again.

"There're new prisoners, I suppose? That's the meaning of the dragons we saw?"

"Yes. The Historians will be down there to take notes."

"And if the men do not accept your way of life?"

Valin moved around to test some of the ropes laid out on the quay, glancing at Bar.

"They stay there."

"What about the chain of islands in the west? Do you lay claim to those?"

"We lay claim to nothing, piping man, just live out our lives as we choose. Yes, some of our people have ventured that far."

"Once there was a great land between them, so I surmise," Bar said. "Then it blew itself to pieces, leaving the island chains, and Young Island as the most active."

Valin nodded. "And the stresses of each Pass fire up that volcano again."

Bar stood up and stretching himself, tucking the pipes into his pouch, and he and Valin walked along the quay to view the opening to the sea.

"You have accepted this way of life," Valin said.

"Oh yes, because I could do no else! I am no sailor!"

"The young harper said you could make your way north, to the continent?"

Bar looked at him, and shook his head, smiling.

"I am not that venturesome, Leader, and every island I landed on, they would ask me what I was doing there, and why I was continuing northwards. Eh?"

Valin laughed. "Yes, they would. So young Nadil would have found if he had gone any further."

"Do you think him a spy?"

Valid frowned and gestured Bar to follow. He lead the way out of the cavern, picking up and uncovering a glow basket to see them through yet another complex of tunnels used for storage, checking the barrels and crates as they walked, leaning to sniff occasionally.

"This will all be used up in the next ten or so years, if the Pass lasts that long," Valin said. "I don't think we'll starve, but there're more people in this Pass than for generations gone."

"People increase."

"Yes."

They reached the habitable rooms and Valin requested food and ale to be brought, and took Bar into one of the smaller rooms equipped as an office. Bar nearly tripped and stumbled over the fur rug on the floor, and halted to look at it in astonishment.

"Man, you never caught that on the Islands!"

"My father killed it in his youth."

"In the southern lands?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever been south?"

"Of course."

Valin took the tray from the woman and brought it to the table. He poured ale and served the small cereal bars sweetened with dried fruit. Bar took a swallow and looked around the room at the other trophies.

"Is this your office?"

"No. It was my father's, but I moved nearer to the main cavern. I use this one to store things he holds dear, and when he asks, I can bring them to him. There's a twin of this rug in his room. He killed the pair of them, and brought the skins home."

"From Southern."

"Yes."

Valin observed the piping man, and Bar knew he was under scrutiny and held his expression calm.

"Nadil," he reminded Valin at last, and the Leader nodded.

"I don't think he's a spy in any sense we might use it, piping man, but I think if he managed to get back to the mainland he could do us a lot of damage."

"Do you stop a lot of people? Have you stopped them, over the generations?"

"There have been a few, yes, but if they landed on the mainland, no one came back to check on their stories. We've been alone for a very long time."

"And you feel you won't be alone much longer?" Bar asked. "That's the meaning of your daughter's unease, and your own?"

"Yes. I think the times are changing more rapidly now. If AIVAS has truly been recovered, then by now the Mainlanders will know all their history with great accuracy - perhaps even more accurately than we do - and they will be looking to change their way of life after the Pass."

"Not now?"

Valin shook his head. "Dragons and their riders exist to fight Thread, piping man, during the time of a Pass. This is the ninth Pass, and the dragons are perhaps at their optimum size. Much bigger, and I doubt me they could fly properly. Everything reaches its optimum size, and then must either remain thus, or regress."

"Could they dwindle to the size of the fire lizards again?"

Valin smiled and sketched a fire lizard in the air. "Unlikely, piping man. Those fire lizards we encountered in Southern in my youth were wild, and skittish, yet in them lies the origin of the dragons."

"I told the Historians about the re-finding of them."

"Yes, and it was noted."

"How much do you believe, of what people tell you?" Bar asked bluntly. "How much do you discount, as if it might be fabrication or boasting?"

"We can tell those things, and downright lies also. Half truths - and a veiling of the truth as Nadil did - are much harder to detect."

"Always it brings us back to Nadil and the damage he could do?"

"My brother can be trusted to rein him in, but we must question him again and again, to find out the truth from him," Valin said with a frown and a shake of the head.

"He's young," Bar said tolerantly. "Unless youth is a crime out here?"

"It's rarely a youngster who's wrecked or dumped," Valin replied. "Also, until I have a report from the Historians on the new people, I will ask you to stay close."

"You know I'll do that," Bar replied. "I won't willingly venture outside during Threadfall, and despite the small size of these islands, they must be targeted frequently?"

"Yes, but the fall is over quickly, and we know the patterns, although like you on the Mainland, there were disruptions."

They relaxed then, and spoke of other things, of harvests and new crossings of grain. Bar came from a family that had farmed and grown crops, and he knew the ways of cross breeding to get bigger crops.

Someone knocked and brought a letter, and Valin unrolled it.

"The Historians - are coming here!" he said in astonishment. "They do not usually come in person! There must be something - something new - from the incomers."

Bar stood up and gathered the empty plates and goblets, and Valin followed him out, Bar branching away to the kitchens, hearing Valin calling for his Council. A ripple of excitement and unease was passing through the people in the cavern, and Bar saw Robsin coming to his uncle before he went through into the kitchens.


	19. Chapter 19

_**The usual disclaimer, the one we all know by heart! So the two parts of the story are starting to converge! Thanks for the reviews and encouragement.**_

Everyone knew the Historians had come, gossip and speculation went around all the caverns about it.

"They must have discovered something from the newcomers, more than Nadil told us?" Salle asked.

Bar shrugged. He was scribing down a new song, and Sallee was copying it for him on the neatly ruled sheets of pressed bark they used on the Islands.

"I would suppose. I had to go and speak to them, but I couldn't tell them any more than Nadil, because Mainland history stopped for me when I came here."

"Do you regret it?"

He glanced at her serious face.

"No. It took me a while to get over the lady I loved and lost, m'dear, but time does heal, y'know. It heals by fading the pain, if truth be told."

She nodded. "I know about that."

"Do you? I suppose - I know nothing about your life here."

"Oh well, we must all make silly mistakes in our love life, I suppose."

Bar did not comment on that, as he corrected a few notes and tested out the cadence of the song in his head. As he had said, he did not know her history, and he supposed that although she looked like a young girl to him, she could not be as young as that. She had not settled to marriage and a family, and he wondered if that was part of the silly mistake she had mentioned.

"Anyway, father will call us all together, I expect, if it's serious," she said cheerfully, and hummed the song she was writing down, and Bar laughed and agreed, and commented they must contain themselves in patience.

As Sallee had predicted, Valin called all the adults of the caverns together. The children were minded by the more responsible older ones, and the adults gathered into the biggest cavern. Looking around, Bar decided all the glow baskets in the place must have been brought here, and by their strange deadened light he could see anxiety and speculation. The last time this gathering occurred, he had been told, was when the Threadfall pattern had gone out of kilter. He saw Robsin, and his father Stasic, with the Council, and nodded to them as he moved to stand with Sallee who was gazed anxiously around.

"Well, this is something new to me, m'dear," he said, trying to sound casual. She glanced up at him, and then around at the people, but said nothing, merely nodding.

Valin stood up and moved to the front of the group of Council men, his father seated to one side gripping his walking sticks. Valin cleared his throat and looked around at the people who had chosen him as Leader and spokesman.

"The Council have called this meeting to let all of you hear what the Historians have found out from the new men. Most of you know dragons brought a group of Mainlander criminals to Imprisonment Island, and they have been questioned closely, after the news the youth Nadil let fall, about the Mainlanders discovering AIVAS again."

A rippling mutter spread, was hushed as Valin held up a hand.

"Yes, I know, and we never thought that would be recovered. It has been uncovered, and reactivated itself in accordance with the old instructions of the First Settlers, and the knowledge of those early days is now stored in files accessible to all, and we're told people may go to Landing to access the knowledge, although in this time of Thread, that might not be too easy. AIVAS has switched itself off, this time apparently for good, but that may change, if circumstances warrant. No one can tell that possibility, and we will discount it. But the Mainlanders now have the knowledge of the first people, about computers, about production of all those low level technologies we have listed in our Histories."

"What about the comet strike?" someone asked.

"Yes, they have information about that, about the way it affected them."

"Not half as much as it affected us!"

Valin held up a hand again. "We had warning," he said. "We could evacuate, and although we lost some lives, most were saved. We've survived storms before, and will do again."

He waited until there was silence again.

"The information we have is that the Red Star has been perturbed out of its orbit," he said slowly and clearly. "The dragonriders, under the instructions of AIVAS, took the engines out of the starships and changed the orbit. It will continue this Pass, then it will leave orbit, and it will never come close enough again to trouble Pern."

This time he had to shout to try and regain order. Bar, looking around, saw anger and hope in the faces around him, as Sallee pressed herself to his side, putting her hands over her ears. Bar put his arm around her and held her close, rocking her gently, trying to reassure her; her delicate sixth sense must be overwhelmed by all this, he thought, as he pulled out his pipes and blew a searing discordancy on them.

Valin nodded his thanks as people began to fall silent, their emotions still charged.

"Thank you, we will have silence," Valin said. "The Historians think there is no doubt this is truth. Questioning the group together and separately, this is the kernel of the truth, that dragonriders have at last achieved what they were bred to do, although we might regret it has taken nine Passes and twenty five hundred years to do it! I wager they thought the same as well, when they uncovered AIVAS. In all those Intervals, when the Holders and Craft Masters were consolidating and indeed congealing, the knowledge was being lost and overlaid by tradition."

"Drudgery and slavery!" someone called.

"Drudgery, certainly, but slavery was never in question," Stasic put in. "That was not in the Charter, nor has it ever been part of the Pern. And drudges are paid a wage, and can live in relative freedom."

"Tithing to the dragonriders!"

"Not after this Pass," Stasic snapped back. "They have plans, so we're told, to live in the Southern Continent."

Bar's arm tightened involuntarily around Sallee.

"I have never been to Southern," he murmured. "Certain sure they would want dragons there to sear Thread!"

"It's all grubbed," she whispered back. "And this Pass is the last one."

That was the realisation that was surfacing, Bar realised. This Pass would end the cycle of fear and famine, fear and dread, fear and the locking down of all initiative.

"What are the Council's plans?" someone else called. "How does this affect us?"

"We are not sure," Valin said. "Change will come, we cannot doubt that. We think - on the Council - that we will not remain unknown on these Islands for very much longer. No, hush, let me speak! Please! We in this generation live at the cusp of change, at the very time when all the plans of the ancients come to fruition. And we have determined we must know, at first hand, how this is happening. There must be an expedition to Southern, to infiltrate the people there and learn all we can."

Stasic stepped forward and swept an arm around the cavern.

"We must all help! We must form a chain of people from here to the islands far in the south, those closest to that shore. A group will sail directly from Main Island to the cove where we have customarily landed in the past, and from there move westwards to the places men now inhabit. Information will come to the islands and be passed up through them, through the wire-speakers, to the Councils."

"What about Threadfall? That can destroy the wire-speakers! And some of those smaller islands aren't well protected!"

"Shelters can be made, of glass and metal," Stasic replied. "Those things can be worked out in due course. For now - the Council have put their proposal - all those in favour, say _aye_!"

There was another wave of muttering, but Bar could see it was the most sensible proposal, and was not surprised to see a forest of waving hands, with very few voting against. They even asked for those who abstained, he thought, which was not something he was used to seeing. The half dozen with doubts were noted down, but the motion was carried, as Valin announced, and then the meeting was breaking up.

"This is a large enterprise," Bar said to Sallee as he felt her relax. He let her go, seemingly unperturbed, but in fact he had been very concious of her all the time he held her.

"Yes. It will take some organisation, and people and resources to be deployed." She straightened. "I must go to the children."

"Will you tell them?"

"In a simple way, yes of course, those old enough to understand must know about it - Robsin - can I tell the children?"

Her cousin had come down from the Council area and now patted her shoulder, peering intently at her.

"Yes of course, coz. Are you all right? All those emotions flying around you?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I don't have a great deal of the sixth sense, Robsin."

"Enough for it to make you uncomfortable, I wager!" Robsin replied with a smile. "Now - it's Threadfall shortly - we'll stay on the Main Island - why don't you show me your classes, eh? And you, piping man? What will you do?"

"See if there's any need soothing," he replied. "And there's rehearsal as well, for the Choir, a few rousing songs will cheer people up."

"Do they need cheering?" Robsin asked.

Bar shook his head. "I had my life turned upside down, when I came here. I know the feeling well, but your people will not, no matter how much they think it over. Make no mistake, this is going to be the biggest adventure any of you have had since the first people landed here."


	20. Chapter 20

_**I don't own Pern, but I do like the characters I've put into it! In answer to Pern Dreamer, these chapters are parallel to the earlier set, so they will meet up and make a finale somewhere over the horizon.**_

Sallee was called to the Council chamber three days later. By now the announcement of the journey south had been discussed to such a degree she was sick of hearing about it. Speculation on it was useless, she had told people, because they did not know the way it would be conducted.

"You wanted me, father?" she asked formally as she came in. Uncle Stasic was still on the Island, and sat next to her father, his hand on the maps spread out over the table. Two men she did not know were seated with Leger, their own Island Historian.

"Come in, and sit down, Sallee," Valin replied as formally. "I make you known to the Historians Gramdin and Rogen. Rogen is the one who brought us the news from Imprisonment Island."

"Are the men well, sir?" Sallee asked at once. "Such a fearful trip - and an unknown place at the end?"

"They are well, and I thank you for the thought," Rogen replied. "Not many have uttered such a sentiment. As to the men - I'm afraid they're an unlovely crew, but we have hopes of some of them."

Sallee nodded her thanks as she sat down, looking around at the men.

"Sallee - your name has been put forward to go South," Valin said bluntly. "Stasic suggested it - your sensitivity to people would be an asset."

Sallee looked at the two Historians and they shook their heads.

"We left the most skilled behind, Miss Sallee, and although we can draw cause and effect, and reason from posture and body language, we don't have that sixth sense as you do," Rogen said in explanation. "You would be useful, if you agree to come."

"I don't have such a gift as you seem to think," Sallee protested. "Granted, I can seem to read people - and I get some flashes of insight - but father, Uncle Stasic, there are others?"

"Not of your age," Stasic replied. "I know the people you think of, and we've discussed them, don't imagine we haven't, in fact we've talked it back and forth until we're sick to death of it. Your youth makes you more - flexible."

"I see. And - forgive me - but I am female - I know it shouldn't make a difference, but in these times - and if people feel threatened - they might - "

Her father nodded. "I know, daughter. But it's a risk we have to take. It's all a risk! We know that - but it's urgent we know what is going on."

"Tantalising glimpses," Rogen agreed. "In the past we never worried about it, as you know as a trainee, MIss Sallee, but now we must find out."

Sallee looked down at her hands, clasped together on the table.

"Go to the Southern lands," she said slowly. "Who else is going?"

"The group will be big enough as it is!"

Sallee shook her head in disagreement.

"I think Bar should come," she said. "Agreed, he's been with us a good number of years, but he is a Mainlander."

"As well ask that young man Nadil!" Stasic snapped.

"No, uncle, I wouldn't risk him blabbing off at the mouth the first time he was scared or bored or over-excited," Sallee said frankly. "But Bar would keep a close mouth, and he could help us with - things - situations."

"You are agreeable to going?" Valin asked.

"Yes, father, I'll go. Will you consider my suggestion?"

She watched them talking quietly, reached for a map and swung it around towards herself. It was similar to the ones she used for teaching, but had the ocean currents and depths marked on it as well, the way the land shoaled out around the Islands and made several sharp drops. She remembered Bar saying he thought a volcano had destroyed itself within the centre of the ring of islands east and west. _East and west of what_, she thought suddenly, and put a finger on Southern. _East and west of Landing, and Monaco_.

Valin swung his seat back to face her.

"We'll ask Bar if he is willing," he told her. "If he is, there will be two vessels, you and Bar and Rogen in one, Gramdin and Leger in a second."

"Are you sending small vessels?"

"The risk of Threadfall is still there, daughter," Valin replied. "You need smaller vessels, roofed, and with the ability to turn turtle if need be."

Sallee shivered involuntarily; she had heard tales of fishermen having to turn turtle to present the glass or metal hulls of their vessels to Thread.

"We'll carry everything in glass containers," Rogen said briskly. "With flotation bulbs and wires, they'll be safe if we need take such a drastic course."

"And the winds are right at this time of year," Stasic put in. "You'll sail fast, and if need be, can put in to some of the Islands in the far south of the chain."

Sallee stared down at the map again, at the string of islands like a pearl necklace. Those to the southwards gave them tropical fruits and vegetables, dried or fresh, and passed up the chain of trade and exchange. In return, ingots of black glass were sent to be worked by those Islanders. In Southern there would be things she had never seen. _Dragons_, her mind told her. _Dragons and dragon riders, and the way they overflew and spied out the land._

"It is indeed a risky enterprise," she said slowly. "What if these Southern men capture us and question us?"

"You need stay only long enough to ascertain what's happening, what's being put forward," Valin said. "I don't want any of you taking risks, with your lives, or with ours."

"We need to go to Landing," Sallee pointed out. "And to that place Bar spoke of, Southern Hold, perhaps?"

"I've news of that," Gramdin put in. "Several of the prisoners were paid and instructed by the Lord Holder of Southern to disrupt the new things coming out of AIVAS."

"Why should they do that?" Stasic asked.

"Out of fear, of course," Gramdin replied. "There's fear enough, and confusion, on the Islands at the moment, and we're not touched directly by these changes, or at least, not yet. Those prisoners told us they were encouraged by the Lord Holder to be disruptive and destroy what they called Abominations."

"Abominations," Stasic said, seeming to taste the word in his mouth. "There's a strange thing to call your inheritance! And these things would free the drudges from a lot of the meaningless tasks - ah!"

"Ah indeed," Valin said. "And they would be wanting a change from the bottom upwards!"

"That's the way of change," Sallee said. "Surely our Bill of Rights tells us that? So does the Charter?"

Valin rubbed his ear, smiling a little ruefully at the other men.

"I fancy we may have read and interpreted the Charter a little differently to those struggling on the Mainland," he said at last. "We here are forced by the way we were abandoned, and by our choices, to make the best of things. We work together, in a way they could not, on the Mainland, it being necessary to control men and beasts and food in the Passes."

"And during the Intervals," Gramdin snapped back. "Tradition and precedence make poor bedfellows of our Charter!"

"Then we've the rest of history to change it," Rogen said. "That's not our cause at present. Are we finished? Miss Sallee, I am very pleased to have you agree to come with us."

He smiled at her, and Sallee smiled back, and allowed him to take the map from her.

Bar had arranged a concert, and been rehearsing it, and Sallee took her seat in the auditorium with Robsin and Rogen who seemed to have attached himself to her. This was not the same pressure Dek had put on her, and she was happy to accept his escort.

"I hear this piping man has quite a gift of composing?" Rogen asked.

"He'd deny it, and say he is only a journeyman harper," Sallee replied. "I doubt, myself, if he was a Master, but he was certainly the head harper in whatever hold he was living in."

"Yes, I would imagine so."

They were astonished by the choice of music Bar had made. He had put together a blend of martial and nostalgic songs, and some new peices describing the journeys of the Islanders between the various Islands. Those, he explained, were of a new type of music, and although he thought many here would find them uncomfortable, he would be grateful if they listened.

In the interval Sallee listened with her senses as much as with her ears to the comments all around her.

"Can't say I liked it, myself," Robsin said. "The old tunes are the ones I enjoy."

"But it said things of the sea, and of the wildness of it," Sallee replied. "I would have to attune my ear to it, before I could say I enjoyed it whole heartedly."

There was food and drink afterwards, and Sallee shook off her two escorts and found Bar, taking two glasses of drink with her.

"Thanks, m'dear. Thirsty work to explain that music!"

"I'd like to hear some more of it, sometime."

"Would you? It's something I've been working on for a while. I'm no Master Domick, but I felt those dissonances all around me, from the sea, from Young Island."

"Did you speak to the Council?"

He nodded. "They asked me to join the expedition, and I've agreed. I might be needed, at the very least, in the way of addressing the people there, and knowing things?"

"Yes."

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes," she replied honestly. "Are you?"

Bar finished his drink and turned the delicately blown glass in his hands, and then looked at her.

"Yes," he said at last. "Yes, because there's things - in my past - I'm not proud of - mistakes I've made - and going to Southern will rile them all up again."

"And you can write them out in your music?

"

He laughed softly and saluted her. "So I can, m'dear, and I'll make sure I lay in a goodly supply of paper and ink to do it! There's your father signalling."

Sallee left his side and went across to her parents.

"I've had word about Dek," Valin said quietly. "The lineages show he and his family descended from a Lord Holder abandoned out here at the beginning of the Second Pass."

"So long ago? The blood line will be diluted!"

"As it is in all of us, but they cling to it, so I'm told." He shrugged. "Little good it will do them!"

Sallee thought about that as she left the auditorium, wondering if any of them needed the lineage charts. Their only use was not to take note of who had come from where, but where in the present day people might not settle and produce children between them because of their close bloodlines. In her own line, there were lineages from the Mainland, brave women going to the settlements of men to procure new blood. But would the Southerns think of them still as criminals, when the inevitable discoveries were made? Or would they be left alone? Once again, in her mind, came the image of dragons on the islands, and she took time to get to sleep that night and the next few nights before the expedition set out.


	21. Chapter 21

_**It's upload day again! The usual disclaimer about the worlds of Anne McCaffrey.**_

Sallee brought a garland of flowers to the boat. The children she taught had crowded around her, tearful, and pressed small presents on her. She had found it more difficult than she had thought to leave them, to walk through the docking cavern out onto the pontoon and so to the boat.

"Sit ye down, Miss Sallee," the helmsman, Goran, said gruffly. "Don't you mind if you have a bit of a weep."

She sat down obediently as the helmsman and the sailsman readied the boat. Provisions and water had been brought on board, and glass and stone containers, woven around with raffia for protection, were stowed away under the sides.

Bar stepped lightly on board and came to sit by her.

"We're passengers at the moment, it seems, m'dear," he said with a rueful smile.

"We'll be needed out on the ocean," she replied, waving to her father. She had made a private farewell of her family, and now turned to stow her small presents into the pottery jar assigned to her. Pottery was rare, but it was more sturdy than glass.

"They love you, lass," Bar murmured. "Good children, all of them."

"Have you made your farewells of your own?"

He cast her a startled glance.

"Mine? No, I never laid claim to any of them, I gave them to the husbands of those brave generous women."

Sallee stared at him, frowning a little, and he shrugged.

"I'm allowed that choice, am I not?"

"Yes of course you are. It's just - not many men can resist boasting, or pointing out - that is my son."

Bar coloured up. "Yes, well, I never saw it that way," he said at last, turning away, and Sallee turned also to watch Rogen climb nimbly on board.

"A man used to sailing?" Bar asked.

"It seems to. The southern Islanders are mostly more used to sailing - smaller islands - distances between."

"How far south have you been?"

"Down to Middle Island, a cousin lives there."

They were busy then, too busy to talk again until the evening when Main Island was a smudge on the darkening horizon. They had a chart of Threadfall with them, and had chosen a time when the blight would fall to their west, over the mainlands where the dragons and their riders would be busy.

The stars started pricking out, and Goran pointed into the southern sky.

"See there? As we reported to the Historians, there's only one of the ships there now."

Sallee looked up into the sky. All her life, the three ships of the first coming had glowed into the night sky. Now only one of them was up there.

"The new men claim their loss was deliberate," Rogen observed. "They didn't know how, or why, but that's one of the things we need to find out about."

"Who were these men?" Goran asked as he handed around the evening meal.

"They came from a variety of places, but they were united in opposing the new things the Mainlanders had learned through their contact with the computer at Landing."

"Bit short sighted?" Goran asked.

"Very much so, I think, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. What they are not entitled to, here or there, is the destruction by violence of what they don't like."

Goran raised his eyebrows.

"Like that, eh? And they'll be a long time on Imprisonment?"

"Some of them may be there life long," Rogen admitted. "Half a dozen, once separated, seem to be more amenable."

"And they said some southern lordling encouraged them?" Bar asked. "That hardly seems possible?"

Rogen shrugged. "Amongst the boasting and the cursing and the shouting, we gathered they seemed at first to think this Lord Holder as they called him, would rescue them. I had the dubious pleasure of pointing out that if he did so, he would betray himself, and asked if they thought he would do so."

"And their reply?" Goran asked with a grin, a flash of white teeth in the semi-darkness.

"They grew rather thoughtful and silent."

Goran laughed and slapped his thigh, and stood up to check on the sails and sheets as the three passengers made their way to their berths in the cabin.

Bar touched the ceiling.

"So many times I've seen the ingenious use of glass, yet still I can't get used to it," he admitted to Rogen as they rolled their blankets over themselves.

"We do glass rather well," the historian said complacently, and seemed to fall asleep instantly.

By the third day they were working well as a crew, and Sallee took a turn at the tiller occasionally, feeling the wind through the sails, watching the dolphins race their wake.

"They like to see vessels out on the ocean," she said to Goran.

"Oh aye. They never seem to understand why we like to keep secret and hidden, but they can't have betrayed our confidences, or men would have been here long since."

Sallee stared in startlement at the dolphins.

"I never thought of that! Did we tell them to be silent?"

"So it's said, passed down from the first prisoners who made a boat to go out fishing and chose not to go back to the Mainland, but to make a life on the islands. Don't forget, that was at a time when the Mainlanders were hard-pressed and had forgot the dolphins themselves."

Sallee nodded and kept the course trimmed for another hour before Hopren came to relieve her and she could stretch herself and take a drink of water from Bar who was scribing notes on a piece of waxed wood. He had devised that himself from the oily plants of the islands, made the frame and laid the wax, and when he had finished he would transcribe to the leaves the Islanders used for permanence.

"I should take up rock carving, maybe," he said with a smile as she sat down by him. "Carve my songs in the rockface, eh?"

"There are plenty of place on Main Island where there's good smooth rock," Sallee said seriously.

"I was jesting, m'dear!"

"I don't know why? We're used to rock carving, to seeing some snippet of wisdom on a stone."

Bar tapped his teeth with his wooden stylus, and nodded.

"Something to think of. The prisoners attacked a place they called Printers Hall. There was never a place like that in my day, nor yet in Nadil's. A new thing, to print multiple copies of whatever you want people to read."

"That would be nice in class," Sallee said wistfully. "Not to have to copy a dozen times over!"

"Maybe we'll prise the secret out of them, eh? If they can do it, so can we."

Sallee laughed, and then grabbed at the counter as the ship heeled in the wind. Bar scooped up a falling glass and looked around for somewhere safe to put it.

"Wind's getting up," Sallee said uneasily. "Storms can be violent out here."

"Goran will surely run for land if it gets too much?"

"Yes, of course he will. I don't know these small islands and reefs, but I expect he does. The other ship is ahead of us, he thinks."

They began putting things away, closing and locking the cupboard doors and then rolling the bedding and strapping it. Although they had not done so before, both of them pulled on their safety vests, layered with the soft wood of a tree that would float them safely if anything happened. Sallee staggered as the ship heeled over again, and they heard the crack of the sail. Bar went out, holding the door to stop it slamming back in the wind, and Sallee heard him shouting something, then he came back in.

"All hands on deck, m'dear," he said, and although his voice was cheerful, she saw his face was grim.

The passengers came out on deck and Goran passed them rope harnesses to clip to the rails, and they set about helping to trim and turn the sails as the waves passed under their stern, lifting the boat high and dropping it with a twist and a thump. The outrider took a lot of the shock, but the sea was wilder than Sallee had ever seen it.

"Not all of this is natural!" Goran yelled over the noise of sail and timber. "I'm guessing Young Island threw a few more rocks into the sea! We'll have to reef the sail."

Sallee fumbled and struggled, glad to have Bar's solid weight at her shoulder as she grappled with the reefing lines, tieing them with torn fingers, dashing the blood away from a torn fingernail.

"She'll hold!" Goran shouted. "Duck down now - "

They did so, crouched under the side boarding, sheltered from the worst of the wind, and Bar tied some cloth over Sallee's hands, his arm over her shoulder as he watched Goran.

"Where's Rogan and Hopren?" she asked.

"Forward, I think. They're safe enough - we're driving too far to the west for Goran's liking, he says."

"There's shoaling seas hereabouts," Sallee said.

"There's clear sky over there, though. An hour or so, would you say?"

Sallee peered out to the east and could see the clearer sky, but the wind was still whipping up the waves, and as she knelt up there was a fearsome cracking sound, and with a yell Goran threw himself at the tiller as the outrigger reared up and then down, and the struts holding it to the ship cracked and severed. The outrigger spun round and the point embedded itself in the side boarding where Sallee had been sitting; Bar had sensed the danger and flung both of them into the bottom of the vessel and the ship slewed around, the boom came over with a crack like thunder and caught Goran unawares. He dropped the tiller, staggered, and toppled overboard.

Bar gave a yell and raced to the side, and Sallee struggled to her knees as Rogen and Hopren came from aft.

"We're holed!" Hopren shouted, before he raced to help Bar haul the unconcious Goran back into the ship. The broken outrigger was still crashing into the hull, and Sallee grabbed up a knife and leaned over to hack at the rope fastenings. Rogen joined her, and they released the outrigger to float away. Sallee was panting and dazed as Rogen helped her down from the edge of the vessel.

"Find something to plug the holes!" Hopren shouted as he wrestled with the tiller, and the boom swung back and around, and the mast cracked and swayed.

"Ware!" Bar screamed, and Sallee ducked and rolled into the cabin area as the ship, disabled and leaking water, swung beam on to the waves, and with a groan like a wounded soul, rolled over, tipping Sallee and the others into the ocean.


	22. Chapter 22

_**You know, this uploading comes around far too fast! The usual nod of thanks to Anne McCaffrey and her worlds.**_

Bar came to the surface choking and spitting. His safety vest was keeping his head above water, but waves were crashing all around as he searched for his harness line. It was stretched out taut, and he hauled himself along it, swimming clumsily towards the upended hull.

Reaching it, he dived under to find Sallee floating in an air pocket, her head bloodied. He pulled her around and out, and held onto the hull with his other arm as he looked for the three men.

He saw Hopren struggling with Goran's inert body, and then there was a splash beside him and Rogen was shoving the end of the broken spar towards him.

"Catch hold, man!" Rogen shouted.

"We've our vests - go and help Hopren!"

Rogen splashed along the hull and Bar wondered if they would be able to right the ship. It bobbed above the waves but he knew most of their belongings would be lost by now, unless as Rogen had done as he had proposed, to put them in stoppered glass jars with air floats and lines.

"We're going to try and right it!" Rogen shouted, and Bar nodded and came around to put his shoulder under the shattered boarding of the side of the hull, feeling the broken wood cutting into his shoulder.

"Heave!" Hopren shouted, and the three men heaved on the hull, pushing at it, succeeding only in making it bob away. Hopren cursed richly and hung an arm over the spar as they hauled the hull back towards themselves, using their safety lines.

Bar looked around at the stormy waters, seeing the sliver of blue sky still in the east, and then seeing something from the corner of his eye in the south. He wondered if it was a sea bird, then they were heaving at the hull, and this time succeeded in righting it.

Hopren stared up at the shattered side boarding.

"Right dangerous to climb over that," he said grimly. "Who's the lightest of us?"

"I am," Sallee said from behind them, and they turned as she swam towards them. Blood still flowed from her head wound, but she was awake and alert.

"Lift me up into the boat," she said and Hopren put a shoulder under her and half threw her into the hull. They could hear her coughing and spitting, and then she was leaning over the side.

"Still afloat, but the hull's holed," she reported. "It'd be safer for us inside than out, though?"

Hopren nodded, and after several tries they managed to roll Goran into the hull. Sallee propped him up out of the water and felt for a pulse, seeing the lump raised on his head, and finding a broken arm as well.

"I'm going to try and plug the hole," she told the men.

They watched her wade over to the cabin area where the glass roof had held firm. Taking a deep breath she submerged, searching for the hole, and after an agonising wait, Bar saw her coming out for another breath.

"There's a blanket here - I'm going to try and wedge it in the hole."

"Don't get trapped!"

Bar thought it was a lifetime until he saw her again, as gasping and gulping, she hung onto the side boarding which was awash as the hull lay nearly flat to the surface of the sea. The cold blustery wind was obviously cutting through her sodden clothing, and she was shivering as she began to bail out the water.

"How is Goran?" Bar asked urgently. Hopren shook his head.

"He needs to be out of the wind and the water, that's for sure! The tiller's ripped off the rudder, and we've no sail - there must be oars somewhere - we need to get this hull emptied if we can."

"Push these into the cabin," Sallee told Rogen, and together they pushed the containers into the cabin and found bailers. Sallee ruthlessly emptied her small store of treasures into the cabin and began to bail with the pottery jar, and Rogen found two jugs, and together they began bailing, but for every jugful going overboard, another wave was slopping in.

"At least we're afloat," Hopren said grimly. "Apart from that one breach, the air tanks are holding."

Bar nodded as he looked around the stormy sea. He thought he could see dolphins, but they were not near enough to signal, and he looked around into the sky again.

This time he saw a shape coming towards them, and even as Hopren also saw it and shouted a warning, pointing, Bar sent out a frantic soundless appeal.

_Help us, help us, or we drown_

It seemed to be just a moment, and then with shocking suddenness and a downward blast of freezing air, a huge brown dragon was hovering over the hull, the sea flattening under the downdraft of its powerful wings.

_Hold the sides_

"Hold on!" Bar screamed, and then astonishingly the hull was being lifted out of the water, and gripped in enormous talons. Sallee was screaming in fear, and Hopren was shouting and flailing, and then it was dark, a darkness of nothingness and a piercing cold, for the space of three breaths, and as suddenly as it had happened, the hull was coming down towards a sandy beach, and smashing into dry land with a jolt that sent all of them sprawling.

Bar struggled to his knees, seeing people racing down the beach, and turned his head to see the head of the brown dragon thrust towards him, its eye whirling orange and yellow.

_Thank you, thank you, thank you_

_Once would be enough, stranger_


	23. Chapter 23

_**The usual disclaimer about Anne McCaffrey's world.**_

_**So here it is - the beginning of the final part when I hope I can manage to weave it all together for everyone.**_

St'ven slid from Maranath's shoulder and felt his leg buckle as he hit the warm sand. Grabbing at his dragon's foreleg he shook feeling back into himself.

_- are you hurt?_

_- no, not at all, just wet and frozen and my leg isn't healed._

_- I should not have?_

_- dear heart, who else could have done it? You were wonderful!_

"What's going on - is that you, St'ven?"

"Lord D'ram. We saw - they were in danger - it was Maranath - "

The older man gripped hold of him.

"You're freezing!"

"Soaked by a storm - "

"Come along then. And these others - is that man hurt?"

A girl had clambered over the side of the vessel, clad in serviceable jerkin and trews, her feet and calves bare, pimpled with cold and wizened by water exposure. Like St'ven, she staggered as she struck dry land, staring around at the long stretch of sandy beach, the vessel beside her leaking water from the holed hull.

"He broke his arm when we capsized, and struck his head."

"And you, I think, miss - you're bleeding."

She put a hand to her head and found the soaked bandage. People were coming across the sands and St'ven allowed himself to be led towards the hall with the others. He could see the two wild fire lizards circling Maranath, chittering at him, and then with a single flap, he had hurled himself into the air. The girl cried out and cowered, staring up in amazement.

_- what is it, dear heart?_

_- there is another vessel, the dolphins have them secure, your father is going to help_.

The girl was staring at him, and up at the dragon.

"What did he say? You're speaking with him?"

"He says there's another boat?"

"Yes! Yes, there is - are they safe? We were separated in the storm."

"I think they'll be here soon."

"In here, youngster," Lord Lytol said tersely. "Let's get you out of those soaking clothes!"

St'ven allowed them to bustle about him, glad of the warmth rubbed into his skin by rough towelling, and the loan of fresh clean clothes.

"I thought you weren't to go _between_?" Lord D'ram asked grimly from the doorway.

"I'm not - have you tried to stop a dragon from doing what he thought was right?"

D'ram winced.

"Um - all right, I see your point. These people are strangers to us - your father talked about these Islands - are they from the Islands?"

"Yes," St'ven said baldly.

"Ah. You know that? Have you ever met them?"

St'ven shook his head.

"No, I've never met them, but I know their vessel type, and their clothing, and their speech is slightly different to ours."

"I see. I won't question you further, come and have something warming to drink."

They came into the main hall, and four of the strangers were there, the girl and three older men. St'ven glanced about.

"He's having his arm set," D'ram said. "Come and sit down, youngster."

He did so, shooting curious glances at the others. He had never met Islanders, but he had grown up with the knowledge of them, and used the things they traded discreetly with his father.

"I am Lord D'ram, I used to be a dragon rider from the Old Time," D'ram said. "This is Cove Hold, and the Hall built for the late Masterharper Robinton. You were brought here by the brown dragon Maranath from a Southern Weyr, ridden by St'ven here."

"We thank you and your dragon greatly," one of the men said. "I am called Bar, I was a harper of sorts in Nerat a dozen years ago. This is Mistress Sallee, daughter of Master Valin, the leader of Main Island. Rogen, historian, Hopren, helmsman. Goran, our captain, is the one who was injured."

"You none of you came out unscathed," D'ram said as he served them with warm klah, with something spicy in it. Bar drank his with relish, but St'ven noticed the girl tasting it cautiously as if she had never tasted klah before.

"It was a bad storm, but there was something of Young Island about it," Hopren said. "Since the comet struck, the islands have been much disturbed and there's been more volcanic activity."

"You knew about the comet?" D'ram asked.

"Of course we did," Rogen said impatiently. "We watched it and calculated its trajectory, and moved everyone to safety before it struck."

"We knew nothing about it until nearly too late!"

Rogen shrugged. "Maybe we were lucky then, who is to tell? You say the other ship is rescued, young sir?"

"My dragon Maranath informs me they're being towed here."

"Are they safe? Uninjured?" the girl asked urgently.

"I am told they are safe."

"Who tells you?"

"My dragon, of course. We can speak to each other. Don't you know about the bond between rider and dragon?"

She shrugged, pushing the cup away.

"I've been told, of course."

"We'll wait on full explanations until the others come," Rogen said, glancing at D'ram and Lytol. "This meeting is not something we planned upon, we had not expected the storm, nor the rescue, dramatic as it was. To be lifted up like that - and that cold! I've never experienced anything like that before."

"_Between_," Bar said quietly. "That was _between_, the realm through which the dragon transport themselves."

"Indeed? Teleportation? And telepathy - which sort - Retrocognitive, Precognitive, or Intuitive Telepathy? I suppose the others follow as well? Telekinesis?"

"I thought you didn't know anything about dragons?" Sallee asked suspiciously, and Rogen threw up his hands.

"Not personally, no of course I cannot know! I was born and bred on the Islands, Miss Sallee, but I am a historian, and I sift through the words of those brought to us. I know of dragons."

"Why are you here?" St'ven asked bluntly. "Islanders don't usually come this far south, I'm told."

"By that mysterious father of yours, I suppose?" D'ram snapped. "I intend to question him a lot more closely about his connections to the Islands."

"Your father knows of us?" Sallee asked.

"He is called Rayden, son of Laden," St'ven said. "His relatives were sent to the Islands four hundred years ago, at the end of the Eighth Pass, when he came forward with the Queen Dragon rider Lessa."

"Ah! Yes, I know him," Hopren said. "I've met him in the last few years - wonderful sailor, your father - instinctive knowledge of the sea and it's currents and tides. I look forward to meeting him again."

"And the reason you are here?" D'ram asked.

Rogen turned to face him, his expression serious.

"We have been told by - er - recent arrivals - that AIVAS was reactivated, although our latest information is that it has shut down again? But we are told you now know about Landing, and the dispersal, when all knowledge was lost by you in the twenty five hundred years since then?"

"Yes. What concern is it of yours?"

Rogen glared at him, and Sallee gave a contemptuous snort.

"That's the answer I was expecting, Rogen," she said bitterly.

"Wait a minute, masters all," Bar said in his mild deep voice. "Let us not get on high horses - or indeed dragons - just yet awhile. We are all in a fair state of shock, I would think, and I suggest, Miss Sallee, all of us, that we get some sleep - with or without fellis juice - and rise in a better frame of mind, when our companions may be here?"

He looked around at them, and St'ven nodded.

"That would be a good suggestion, Harper Bar."

Bar started and stared at him, then smiled.

"My, and that's not a title I've heard in a good few years! What say you, all of you?"

Sallee sat back and relaxed.

"Thank you, Bar. Yes, we need not rush at this - it will take time to mend the boat, and find out what we need to know."

"I'll give you escort, Miss Sallee," Lytol said. "We've had rooms prepared for you - there's no Thread due so you can keep the shutters open."

She stood up, and St'ven was not the only one to see she was trying not to fall over. Lytol came with his kind smile and led her away, and St'ven and D'ram escorted the others to their rooms, and St'ven was not sorry to be ordered to bed himself, D'ram escorting him to a small room with a single cot. St'ven hesitated, looking around.

"The Weyrling Master - "

"I took the liberty of asking Maranath to bespeak Histeth and explain," D'ram said soothingly as he helped St'ven into the bed. "I think, youngster, there will be a lot more known about you and yours from this meeting?"

St'ven stared up at him as D'ram smoothed the bedding.

"Yes, my lord, and I will be pleased to have it in the open - hiding and prevaricating - I don't like that."

D'ram nodded and left the room and St'ven touched minds with Maranath who was up on the crest with the watch dragon, and then fell asleep himself.


	24. Chapter 24

_**The usual disclaimer - I only made the characters, not the world. This is now a race, to finish NaNoWriMo before I run out of chapters to post!**_

St'ven woke with the sun dancing in his eyes. He blinked and moved his head, and saw the walls of the room at Cove Hold. Sitting up, he found aches and pains in his legs and arms, and his neck felt stiff. He was warm now, but he knew he would never forget that extreme cold of _between_ when soaking wet. He knew he was lucky he had not caught a terminal chilll from that rescue dash.

_- I would not have let you go_

_- I know you would not, dear heart. Where are you?_

_- coming into the cove, I have been to the ship-fish, hearing their songs._

St'ven found fresh clothes laid out, shook them in case of insects, and put them on, pulled back his bedclothes and humped the mattress to let it air, and then made his way into the main room of the Hall.

To his suprise, he found the girl from the Islands, Sallee, already there, studying one of the the books from the shelf. She looked up, wary, he saw, and glanced around.

"I didn't think anyone else would be around yet."

"Maranath told me he was coming in to land. I thought I'd go and meet him. What are you reading?"

"A book of poems. Songs, I suppose, if you had the music to them."

"Most harpers can fit the words to any tune they devise, I think."

"Yes, ours can as well."

She stood up, and St'ven was surprised and a little discomfited to find she was as tall as him. She put the book back on the shelf with a shrug.

"Our spoken language has changed over the years," she observed. "I think the written word is closer to the language we all spoke when we landed."

"My father thinks much the same - he came forward four hundred years at the beginning of the Pass, and he said he found it difficult at first."

"Those were the Old Timers? Bar told us about them."

"Yes. I suppose he sang you the songs made then?"

"Some of them, yes. Anyone who comes has to put down their experiences."

They stepped outside, blinking at the sun slanting across the sand, and made their way down the stony path.

"Your father is known to the Islanders," Sallee said.

"Yes. He married into them, one of his collateral descendants."

"Secrets," Sallee said with a shake of the head at his expression. "It's secrets that brought us to this impasse, that no one knows of anything beyond the Pass they live in. It may be taught, but I doubt if people bothered much with the past, before AIVAS was revived?"

"I don't suppose they did. Enough to worry about, with Thread falling, and needing to keep people and animals alive, and food on the table, and clean water available."

"Yes. We have caves."

"Most of the Weyrs are caves and caverns."

"Not this one?"

"No, this was built specially for the late Master Harper Robinton."

"That would be the Master Harper that Bar talked about? He sounded a remarkable man."

"Yes, I think he was. I never met him, but any harper who crossed our path would talk about him."

They reached the beach and Maranath was there, wallowing in the sand, rearing up when he saw them, flapping his wings in great excitement.

_- they have many tales to tell! They have circled this world and seen all the oceans! We can see those places as well!_

_- of course we can, but perhaps not just yet. This is Miss Sallee, who wants to thank you for rescuing her_

Sallee threw him an annoyed look, and walked slowly over to Maranath who stood quite still as she approached. St'ven wondered if in fact she would be able to face the dragon. She stopped at a safe distance and stared at Maranath, looking him over, and then shook her head.

"All my life, we've feared the dragons," she said in explanation. "Dragons over the Islands bring only the criminals who need to be integrated. We hide from the dragons."

_- no dragon knew you were there. We could have helped you_

Sallee jumped back in startlement, and St'ven knew Maranath had spoken directly to her.

"Dragons can speak to anyone they want," he said helpfully.

"I've been told that. Thank you for rescuing us, Dragon of Pern."

_- my pleasure and my privilege_

Sallee shook her head again, and paced around the dragon, still at a safe distance, although Maranath did not move. She came back to St'ven's side to ask questions, which St'ven answered as best he could.

They paused when someone hailed them, and Bar the harper was coming towards them.

"I wondered where you were."

"What have you been doing? Talking?"

Bar smiled placatingly at her.

"You know I wouldn't do that, m'dear. Not without all our group together. I've asked a wee bit about the harpers, as you'll allow I may? There's a new Master Harper, so they say, and new songs for me to learn, no doubt!"

"I like your songs."

"Thank you. Are there likely to be other dragons coming here?"

"Probably," St'ven admitted. "The tale of finding you will flash around the world, from dragonmind to dragonmind."

"And you never thought to use them as communicators?" Sallee asked. "We use drums, which I think came from the early days, and harpers?"

"So they say," Bar replied with a smile. "I served a turn with the drums, and there are drummers at every major hold and weyr in the north."

They turned and walked back up to the hall, and Maranath settled down on the sand, St'ven catching stray thoughts from his dragon as the brown began reviewing the experience of singing with the dolphins.

As they approached the hall Lord Lytol came out onto the porch and shaded his eyes, saw them and waved, and they broke into a trot.

"There's been a message," Lord Lytol said. "The other vessel should be with us on the high tide, and a wing is coming out this way to help - Thread falls soon."

"Will I be permitted to help?" St'ven asked formally, and Lord Lytol nodded.

"There's firestone to be bagged up, and numbweed to be readied. We'll all be busy for a few hours - come in and eat before the smell of numbweed makes it impossible to taste the food!"

They came into the Hall and found Rogen already at the table, waiting for them.

"How is Goren?" Sallee asked.

"Resting, but he's eaten. Hopren is at the boat, checking it over."

He poured _klah_ for them, but St'ven noticed the two islanders did not drink it, confining themselves to water, although Bar drank the hot liquid with relish.

"You say there's Thread on the way?" Bar asked. "Is the land protected only by dragons?"

"By no means. The grubs have been spread out over the years since they were rediscovered - I suppose the islands always had them?"

Rogen glanced across. "There's no need for sarcasm, Lord Lytol. Yes, the islands have grubs - an exile told us about them and we've harvested them for a good many generations now, and returned breeding colonies to the south as well, helping them spread. It's in our interests in a way - no, Miss Sallee, I'm not saying any more!"

He fell silent, and St'ven glanced at the girl, who had glared so fiercely at the historian. Secrets, he thought, and the Islanders had more, no doubt, than he had ever learned about from his father.

After the meal they went to check over the medical supplies and prepare spaces in case of injured dragons or riders. St'ven checked his riding gear, finding it dry and supple.

"We used a new vegetable oil to condition it," Lord D'ram told him. "We've sent supplies to most of the weyrs by now, for them to test in the harsher conditions in the north. Is this your harness? If you're so short sighted, how d'you fit it to Maranath?"

They walked out together to where the brown was cleaning sand from his hide.

"I think - Maranath sees it and projects it into me," St'ven admitted. "I'm getting better at using the glass Master Wansor had made for me, for writing and reading, but I still rely too much on Maranath for my sight."

"We've sent away for a pair of lenses," Lord D'ram said. "Wired, they fit to your face, and you can see what others count as regular viewing. In your case, I think you'll have to relearn everything. I suggest you allow Maranath to see for you when you fly Thread."

"Thanks, yes, I think I'll need to do that."

He went through the drill of fitting the harness, and Lord D'ram nodded approvingly.

"Well done! Have the leatherworkers check it regularly, Maranath is into another growth spurt, if I'm any judge."

"You were a Weyrleader - my father's Weyrleader - was he a good rider?"

"Why not ask him? Oh - because of the loss of his dragon?"

"Yes, we don't ask him directly."

"He was a fine rider. Once he was in the air he obeyed orders, and flew a tight line. When he reached the ground again - that was a different matter!" Lord D'ram laughed at the expression on the boy's face. "You know about that, I daresay? A fine man, your father, and his father before him. I'm sorry I ever doubted, but the evidence - was so strong."

"Four hundred years in the past - there's no going back to remedy it, is there?"

Lord D'ram looked thoughtful.

"I'd doubt it. It nearly killed the Weyrwoman Lessa, y'know, bringing us forward. No one ever tried to go back, that I know of. If they did - well - that was up to them, wasn't it?"

"Wouldn't the dragons know?"

Lord D'ram shot him a sharp look. "You know more about dragons than you let on, don't you, youngster? I look forward to hearing your theories, and those of your father. Now - up with you - orient yourself around the Hall so you know where everything is before the Thread comes and you're too busy to think."

St'ven mounted Maranath's shoulder and settled into the fighting straps, and pulled down his goggles. They rose from the sand in one huge leap, St'ven feeling the power of his growing beast beneath him. They spent time circling the Hall, going out in spirals and then flying back to perch on the heights and watch the east where the Thread would fall, and from the heights with their pooled vision, they saw Rayden's vessel coming towards the cove, escorted by dolphins, and towing another of the Island vessels.


	25. Chapter 25

_**So then - beginning to come to an end of this story, and I hope the description of the flaming matches the books. The usual disclaimer and a nod of thanks to Anne McCaffrey.**_

St'ven was waiting with Maranath and the full firestone sacks when the wing of dragons flew in. They came from Monaco, by the banding of the fair of fire lizards accompanying them, and he pulled his goggles down and tucked himself into his jacket, just another weyrling, he hoped.

"Is that you?" G'frey asked. "You must be broiled in there! Give me what you have, this Fall isn't going to last long, but the winds are just contrary enough to make it tricky."

St'ven handed over the sacks and then had to run to fetch more, swinging them over Maranath's flanks as he climbed into the harness and checked the buckles, and suddenly Histeth was hovering above them, winging awkwardly to land on the watch dragon's shelf of stone.

K'neth pushed his helmet back and came over.

"Let me see - pull that one over more - let me tighten this one. Are you ready for this, weyrling?"

"Yes sir. G'frey took my first load. Why are you here?"

"We aren't poaching on Monaco if that's what's worrying you. Just coming to make sure you don't overfly yourself."

They rose into the air then, and Histeth circled below, checking them, then landed again, stretching out his stiffened wing membrane.

_- they care_

_- of course they do. It's kind, because we wouldn't usually fly Thread this soon_

_- I could flame, if they would let me_

_- not this time, dear heart, but soon._

St'ven watched as the wing spread out, the bronzes hovering slightly above, just a lazy movement of their wings enough to keep them in the air. Suddenly there was a full throated roar, taken up by more of the dragons, and looking to the east, St'ven could see a silvery cloud of stuff blurring his sight.

_- it is horrible_

_- yes, I know. Soon there won't be any left_

_- this fall, or forever?_

_- who knows, dear heart?_

St'ven was alert to the riders as they swooped, as they took up positions where their flame would not endanger other dragons, and then darts of flame were everywhere, and the acrid stink of firestone was in the air. The fire lizards had been joined by a wild fair, dancing in and out of the large dragon formation, seemingly in imminent danger of being flamed, then darting out of the way as they made sure no Thread fell to ground.

Below them, K'neth had been busy sacking up firestone, and as his bags were used up, St'ven descended. Maranath dropped briefly to ground, flipped his wings together to give K'neth passage to run with a dozen full bags, and help St'ven tie them on.

"It's erratic," K'neth said. "Look over there - looks like it's heading out to sea, then it swirls in again - go - dragon rider!"

Maranath leaped up into the air and winged towards the lead bronze dragons, and St'ven performed the most difficult of manoeuvres, to swing the bags across between them, reaching up as Maranath, synchronising his wing beats, flew below the leader.

"Thanks! Be careful! Thread!"

His words were lost in the cold of between as Maranath winked out and back again in a slightly different place, fire lizards joining him to chitter angrily. St'ven looked back, and saw the clump of Thread his dragon had avoided, now being flamed by G'frey.

_- they use the fire on the ground_

St'ven looked down, and the flame throwing crews were fanned out around the hall, ready for any Thread that might get through. He could see gouts of flame near the watch dragon's ledge, and realised Histeth was flaming low level swirls of Thread. St'ven found he could hardly breathe, and then the big dragon settled down again, bugling his defiance towards the east and the Red Star winking overhead.

_- what about the ships?_

_- they are safe. The little brothers tell me they erect the glassy shields and are safe. I don't understand - what are those shields?_

_- like a roof, to stop Thread reaching the wood of the ship_

_- stone is good, a cave with a sandy beach and warm water is better_

St'ven laughed, aware that he was aching and sweaty and cold all at the same time, that he had a headache and dry throat from the firestone, and then G'frey was beside them.

"It's passed across, Monaco will pursue it, brown rider," he called. "Come down now."

Maranath turned obediently and circled, landed beside Lamath who thrust out his head to butt against Maranath in approval; St'ven could hear their fleeting thoughts as he slid out of his harness. His knees buckled as he reached ground, and he grabbed at the straps to haul himself upright, and K'neth had hold of him.

"It's all right, Maranath, he's just tired, and his legs don't work so well. Be calm. Now then, youngster, let's get you out of this stuff!"

Together they hauled the flying gear off and K'neth handed him a canteen of water, and he drained it in one gulp. Lord D'ram was seeing to G'frey, and Histeth was rumbling up on the ledge. St'ven looked up at him, and Histeth raised a wing.

_- you do well, brown rider_

K'neth raised an eyebrow.

"He doesn't usually bother with talking to others!"

"And especially pesky young weyrlings, sir?"

K'neth laughed. "Especially them. Take Maranath down and bathe him, and yourself, weyrling, and there will be food."

"Did you know the islanders are here?"

"I was told, yes, and I look forward to meeting them, and no doubt your father will be here soon?"

"Yes, he's bringing in the other ship. How did the islanders cope, Weyrling Master?"

K'neth glanced up at the hall.

"Well enough, I expect, they will be used to Thread, surely, as much as we are. What they may never have seen is a wing of dragons flaming!"

"That was what I thought."

"D'you like them so much already?"

"I don't know them, Weyrling Master. I never met them before."

"Hmm. Off you go."

St'ven trudged through the sand with Maranath, finding Lamath already in the water, and the two dragons engaged in a mock fight as G'frey stood knee deep and laughed at them.

"You'd think Lamath is as young as Maranath!"

"They aren't that much apart in age, surely?"

"I suppose not. You did well, youngster, you seemed to have an instinct of where to turn, and those throws - amazing!"

St'ven flushed. "My brothers and sisters - they liked to throw ball with me."

"But your wrists are aching now? Swim out with me to scrub these dragons."

They swam with leisurely strokes, and climbed onto their dragons and cleaned the last of the firestone stink from them. Lamath and Histeth had already coughed up the residue, G'frey said, and that would be used by the holders to keep predators away.

"They don't have a fence like you do?"

"They might do, I don't know that I've ever noticed it. There's extensive gardens here, so maybe the fences are further out. Look - is that the ships coming in?"

St'ven shaded his eyes and looked.

"Yes. The island vessel lost its mast, by the look of it. Those storms can be viscious out there on the open ocean."

"You'd know about that?"

St'ven looked down at him.

"Yes, I've been out with my father a lot of times, fishing and mapping the coast line. The trouble is, with the earthquakes and volcanic activity, the big waves can come out of nowhere."

"We saw that a while ago, when the fireball struck. Where were you and your family?"

"Safe at home," St'ven admitted. "The ship rode it out, and we were safe."

G'frey shook his head.

"I'd like a long session with your father, but I have an uneasy feeling he wouldn't answer any questions!"

St'ven laughed reluctantly. "Not if he didn't want to! Here they come - can we get the dragons out of the water?"

The big beasts waddled up the beach and made hollows in the dry sand, turning and turning before settling, and the fair of wild fire lizards appeared and began to clean them of sand as they laid their big heads down and slowly closed their eyelids. St'ven wished he could do the same as he climbed onto the jetty and trod tiredly up to the hall to change his clothes ready for their new guests.


	26. Chapter 26

_**The usual disclaimer about Pern. I knew someone would find that typo! I knew it was there, and I searched and searched for it, but it slipped through. So now we have most of the main characters gathered together.**_

St'ven changed into clean dry clothing, finding he was aching and sore from jinking about on his dragon and carrying the weight of the firestone bags.

"Here you are, drink this," Lord D'ram said from the doorway of his room. "You aren't as young as I thought, young - man."

St'ven flushed as he pulled his shirt closed.

"No sir. What's this?"

"Restorative, fruit juice and so on."

St'ven drank it down, finding it soothed his throat, sore from the acrid taste of firestone smoke.

"Thanks. How did the islanders fare?"

"Come and ask them?"

St'ven followed into the main hall, and Bar was strumming notes and writing them down, humming under his breath. The two historians were writing notes, and the girl was staring out of the window with a frown on her face.

"Miss Sallee. Are you all right?"

"What? Yes, I'm fine, thank you, just - pondering - on dragons. We only ever see one or perhaps two, never a wing like that, and flaming - no matter how many ballads Bar composes, nothing prepares you for that sight."

"Were you afraid?" St'ven asked bluntly, and she turned to study him.

"Afraid? No, I wasn't afraid. Isn't that strange, when we are taught to hide from them? It was - rather magnificent - to see them performing their ancient duties - and the fire lizards as well. No, I wasn't afraid, nor will I ever be afraid."

"Did you hear them?"

She smiled a little ruefully, rubbing her temples.

"I heard a lot of confusion and emotion," she said. "I couldn't distinguish any voices, except your dragon, but I think that must be because he spoke directly to me. Did you know he sounds like you?"

St'ven flushed. "I'm told the dragon sounds like the rider, yes."

She laughed, and brought him over to Bar, who looked up with a smile and a shrug.

"I wonder how it was in the Interval, when the dragons were simply flying on their own purposes," he said. "I can't recall anything but Thread, but Lord D'ram lived through the end of his Pass, and into the Interval."

"That's my ambition," St'ven said with a smile as he looked out of the window at the two sleeping dragons. "To see Maranath sleeping a great deal, and getting on with activities that don't threaten to kill him."

"He might not welcome that thought," G'frey said as he came in. "Dragons must fly, when Thread is in the sky."

St'ven nodded, watching the two ships come in towards the jetty.

"I might - just go and welcome them," he murmured. "Excuse me."

He trotted down the pathway and came to the jetty, where ropes were being thrown to secure the two vessels.

"Hola, Stee!"

St'ven found himself engulfed in a bear hug from his brother Ramir.

"Oof! Are you growing again? Let me breathe!"

Ramir laughed and let go, and St'ven helped him secure the ropes around bollards as the islanders' ship was eased towards the shelving beach. Everyone grabbed a rope and hauled as the waves pushed the ship further onto the sand. The first ship still lay on the sand, and the second was safely secured. Water sloshed inside and streamed from the sides. Up on deck the glassy shields were being folded away, tucking down into a locker, and men were climbing down from the ship.

"Welcome to Cove Hold," St'ven said formally. "Your companions are in the hall."

"Thanks be for that," the older man said. "I'm called Gramdin, I'm a historian, as is Leger. Was anyone injured on the other vessel? I see it pulled up - holed - is everyone safe?"

"They are, sir, but one of the seamen has a broken leg. Otherwise, everyone is safe."

He turned away to greet his father and other brother, Todren, just below Ramir in age, but larger and stronger than him, and both of them towered over St'ven.

"I saw you flying, son," Rayden said, a tic jumping beside his mouth. "Good flying."

"Thanks, Pa."

Rayden nodded, and they walked together up the beach.

"I see that nosy bronze rider is here?"

"G'frey? Yes, he's been looking after me."

"D'you still need that?"

"Oh yes, Pa, I'm only a weyrling yet. I need a lot of training before I'm as good as the best."

"And are you going to be?"

St'ven slanted him a glance, seeing him clearly this close.

"Yes, sir, I'm going to be one of the best."

"That's good."

He greeted the others, all the seamen putting off their heavy shoes before they came into the Hall. Rayden looked narrowly at the islanders gathered together, exchanging news, and then looked at Bar.

"I know you. Nerat, wasn't it?"

Bar looked startled, and then embarrassed. "Er - the ship called Goranth, yes? Um - did I thank you for rescuing me from that brawl?"

"Not that I noticed, no. I kept your set of silver pipes, by the way, because the next time I sailed by, you'd vanished."

Bar coloured up. "I found the islands - or rather - they found me."

Rayden nodded. "Tricky currents all along that coast."

Rogen had been watching him, and now nodded.

"I know you, I was at your wedding."

Lord D'ram had been looking from one to the other.

"There's hot water and clean clothes, you'll all feel a lot better for that."

St'ven and his father sat down once they were alone. Rayden examined him carefully.

"You look - older."

"I've flown against Thread, Pa, even if Maranath didn't flame."

"Yes, that's apt to age a man. All right. Your mother and the girls are well, the land's in good heart. Now then - how much d'you want me to tell this lot of strangers?"

St'ven laced his fingers together and looked out of the window, and then back at his father.

"I want you to tell them just exactly as much or as little as you want, Pa, because most of it isn't my story, it's yours. I know you don't agree with - with - prisons and such like - but you will be careful what you say, won't you? We still have to live in this world all the rest of our lives."

Rayden gave a short laugh. "Oh aye, I know that, and you wouldn't be the first to tell me that! I'm prepared to pool my knowledge, and I think these historians - and Miss Sallee - will have quite a lot to tell these landholders."

He sat back, rubbing his face, his glance going out towards the two dragons, and St'ven knew he was thinking of his own long dead dragon, and he also knew the pain of that would never leave him.


	27. Chapter 27

_**The usual disclaimer and acknowledgement to Anne McCaffrey. Starting to build to the climax now! I hope to be able to finish this in regular instalments because I have only a few hundred words to go in my story for NaNoWriMo.**_

Food and drink was brought, and Lord Lytol opened the computer in the corner of the room. The historians crowded round to see, and Lord Lytol looked up at them.

"You don't look surprised to see this? It was made to AIVAS' descriptions when he was active."

"We've known about computers for a long time, but again, it's been a long time since ours were active, what with wear and tear and the loss of knowledge of how to build the spare parts."

"You have computers on the islands?"

"Certainly we do!" Rogen looked around at the others. "Is this going to be a trial, a hearing, or just an informed discussion?"

"Why should you want to know the difference?" Lord D'ram asked.

"Because of the need to know. There are Lord Holders would be glad to hide us away, and dragonriders maybe the same? We never intended to be seen!"

"Come and sit down," Rayden said in his deep voice. "Sit ye down, fetch out your pen and ink, historians."

They did so, and St'ven served food and drink, and came to sit by his father. His two brothers were out on the beach with the island seamen, examining the damaged hull, he could see them clearly.

"So then," Rayden said. "I wouldn't exactly say I'm impartial, but I'm the nearest thing you have."

He looked around all of them, seeming to take note of them, G'frey sharing a stack of paper with Lord Lytol, the historians grouped on one side of the table. Lord D'ram gestured to him, and he took a deep breath.

"The islands have been inhabited almost since the first, since I came forward, because of losing my d - dragon so quickly," Rayden said. "I've seen their history slabs - Miss Sallee will tell you about those - but they haven't always been the domain of criminals. At first, it was sailors blown off course, adventurers seeking gemstones or precious minerals. The old maps, the maps you only discovered at the oldest Weyrs and Holds, those were common knowledge in the early days. Then, as knowledge was lost, after the First Pass, it was decided to dump criminals on the islands and let them fare as they would."

"It seemed humane," Lord Lytol said. "It was known the islands had food and water for industrious people - "

"You'll tell me a criminal will turn over a new leaf and suddenly become a farmer or a fisher?" Gramdin asked scornfully. "Oh yes, I don't deny some of them mended their ways, but some of them, they set themselves up as little better than the outlaws they were, and preyed on the folk trying to make a living."

"What d'you do with those kinds?" Lord Lytol asked.

"We turn them over onto a couple of islands that are really in truth prisons," Sallee said. "My father is Leader at the moment, so I know the legal rights and obligations, the codes of laws we've built up, and some of the people you dump on us can't be absorbed into our society without destabilising it. Those - we keep in prison."

"And it takes a minimum of four or five years before anyone is allowed to wander the islands freely," Bar put in. "I know that - I've been there a good long time, and the first few years I was kept close."

Sallee nodded. "There's good reason for that, to see who will be able to adapt. It's a hard enough life if you work hard, let alone if you think the world owes you a living."

"And do you know everyone's history, who comes to the Islands?" Lord Lytol asked. "There's a young man been recently sent - to my everlasting regret I failed him in his childhood and early manhood, and he took to the bad."

"Name?" Sallee asked.

"Dorse."

Gramdim made a face. "That one! Sounding off something alarming about how Lord Toric will come and rescue them and put all of us to the sword!"

"Lord Toric?" Lord D'ram snapped it. "What's he to do with a landless feckless layabout like Dorse?"

"Dorse claims he was promised land and holdings if he'd uphold Lord Toric in his land grabs," Gramdin said. "All of that group were promised land and money, apparently. They were to spread out across Southern and take hold of what they could. Mind you, that man might promise, but he'd slide out from under as soon as he could, by my estimation."

Lord Lytol sighed unhappily and looked away, and Sallee looked around at the mainlanders.

"You don't sound overly surprised about this Lord Holder?" she asked.

"He was the only one who would venture south," Rayden reminded them. "I learned about that, and I dropped by occasionally to watch him, back at the beginning, and once he'd grown into this age. You promised him much, but he wants more. He tried to claim everything, didn't he?"

"Yes. He has Southern Hold, and a good portion at that, and family members married into influential places in the North," Lord D'ram said. "But we still watch him."

"Sensible," Gramdin said.

"And why did you venture out of the Islands, after so long?" Rayden asked.

"We learned AIVAS had been awoken, and that facts were known about the earliest days of landing, and we decided we'd come and find out if the islanders were in danger."

"There was always the danger, over all the time you were there, that people would come and investigate you," Lord Lytol pointed out.

"They'd forgotten us, we hoped," Gramdin said.

"What about you, Rayden? You sailed there to see if you still had family?"

"I did. And mighty surprised to see they'd made such a good job of the island life. I admire them, and so should everyone else. They've kept records, and they know the history of the mainland from people coming in and talking about their life."

"Do these people leave to go back to the mainland?" G'frey asked.

Rayden looked across. "No," he said bluntly. "No, they don't leave again. What would they use to leave, eh? The fishing boats are all accounted for, and if you took an axe to a tree on the islands to make a raft, you'd be discovered and dissuaded, right quick."

"So everyone is a prisoner - or a slave?" Lord D'ram asked.

"There's no slavery on Pern, not by the name," Sallee said at once. "There's drudges, all of the Holds and Weyrs seem to have them, and there're tenant farmers, but it's never been called slavery."

"The Charter forbids it - " Lord Lytol said heatedly.

"Oh, the Charter," Rogen said with a nod. "We've a nice clean copy of that, and we were able to prove to Rayden his family were wrongly accused and thrown off their land. His father took and proved a nice tidy piece of land for himself and his wife and daughters, back then, four hundred or more years in the past, and Rayden married a girl from that piece of land. I danced at his wedding."

"But you weren't made a prisoner," Lord D'ram pointed out to Rayden.

"No, because I took oath I wouldn't speak of it, and I never have. These people, coming out of the Islands now, and having to be rescued, that's altered everything, Miss Sallee, I think? These historians might be itching to know about AIVAS, but you're the Leader's daughter, and you have the final say?"

She sat frowning at him, rubbing her temples.

"There's so much aura in here," she said slowly. "I'm picking up on it, that's something I can do, and there's a lot of conflict."

"I'll be bound," Rayden said with a smile. "You show up, and you live a life these mainlanders never thought existed on this world, and now they need to take account of you."

"They need not," she said at once. "As you say, we want to know about AIVAS, how much has been recovered, but then we need to go back and report. The fewer who know we're here, the better."

"Every dragon knows, Miss Sallee," G'frey said formally. "Lamath and Maranath saw you, and although Maranath, like his rider, keeps a tight rein on his emotions and his thoughts, Lamath has already told Golanth, F'lessan's dragon, and from there, I'd wager it took but a instant to reach most dragons on Pern, and probably their riders."


	28. Chapter 28

_**I do so love playing on Pern, even though it belongs to Anne McCaffrey! All right - we are getting to the climax of this story now, and since I am a NaNoWriMo winner, I can concentrate on this last section.**_

After their initial outburst at learning the dragons had spread the word of their coming around the wole of Pern, the Islanders calmed down again.

Sallee shook her head.

"I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, when we know what they're capable of, but all the same - for everyone to know -"

"Not everyone," Lord D'ram assured her. "The dragons and their riders, yes, and no doubt the Weyrleaders might be meeting about it, but they wouldn't tell the Lord Holders until the Weyrleaders of Benden give permit."

Sallee frowned at him.

"Benden," she said slowly, as if trying out the word in her mind. "We hear a lot about Benden, from those who arrive at the Islands. Benden held everything together when the dragons vanished and went ahead."

"A mad thing to do, but Lessa was insistent," D'ram agreed.

"And you were faced with a dwindling lifestyle," Rogen said dryly. "At the end of every Pass, it's the same, the queen dragons don't produce so many eggs, the landsmen turn their backs on their obligations, and the Weyrs have to make a living during the Interval."

"They seem to have managed," G'frey said angrily. "All our records show the Weyrs made it through the Intervals, growing their own crops, managing their own herdbeasts!"

"Of course they did," Rogen agreed. "I didn't mean it in a derogatory sense, dragon rider, only that - Lord D'ram and the others seized the chance."

"They had no choice," Rayden said quietly. Rogen stared at him.

"Say again?"

"They had no choice. The records show there were no dragons for four hundred years, so they went somewhere. Lessa went back to fetch them, and they had to come forward or change the history of Pern."

The three historians scowled at him, and began muttering to each other, scribbling on their block of paper. Sallee sat watching them, lacing and unlacing her fingers.

"Rayden is right," she said at last. "The paradox is that of having to obey what's written in the past, or change it forever. So the Old Timers came forward, and Pern was saved again, and this Lord F'lar had a say in it?"

"A say in it? He was the saving of Pern!" G'frey said indignantly.

"Thanks for the endorsement, bronze rider," someone said from the door, and F'lar came in, with another slighter man behind him. "Lord D'ram, I hope you don't mind us coming? The Master Harper Sebell, and the Weyrwoman Lessa."

Lessa entered the room, and at once, as always, all eyes went to her.

"Lady Lessa," D'ram said formally, standing and bowing.

"Good day to you," she responded, looking around at them. "Ramoth tells me some very strange things, but none stranger than this, I think?"

"This is Miss Sallee, daughter of Valin, the Leader of the Islands," Rayden said. "The three historians of the Islands, Rogen, Gramdin, and Leger."

St'ven had come to his feet, and was setting fresh chairs, and F'lar looked hard at him.

"How are you managing that, youngster? Without a trip or a fumble?"

"He's doing it through me," Rayden said at once. "He often does it, without realising it."

"A form of reverse telepathy," Rogen said excitedly. "It's often been postulated that mankind could do the same between themselves as between dragon and rider! There were some notes made on the Islands, a long time ago, but no one bothered to pursue it."

"Miss Sallee is sensitive to others," Gramdin put in. "She and some of the other Islanders pick up on emotions."

Lessa had walked around to her place, and now nodded as she sat down.

"Ramoth informs me you would make an ideal queen rider, in another place and time," she said.

"I've never encountered a dragon, except for seeing them overhead," Sallee said. "I always seemed to be able to make sure they didn't see us. They weren't exactly creatures of fear to us, because we know our history, and the gratitude we bear towards them, but we always kept out of their sight."

"You could influence them?" Lessa asked. "So you can talk to them?"

"I - I suppose I could, yes, if I tried. St'ven's Maranath spoke directly to me. That was very strange - not like feeling the emotions of others, but a direct connection to another being."

"I can hear and speak to all dragons on Pern."

Sallee looked grave, and shook her head. "A great responsibility, and a burden, but I sense - with the bond - a joy as well?"

Lessa nodded, looking regretful.

"I don't suppose you would consider standing for a queen egg?"

Sallee gave a gasp of surprise, echoed by the others, and then the girl shook her head with a smile.

"I am of more use in my own lands, but I thank the dragons of Pern greatly for the offer."

Lessa nodded, and turned back to the astonished group.

"What?" she asked testily. "Why are you all staring at me? How far have you reached in your explanations?"

Rayden grinned behind his hand and indicated the historians.

"They are telling us why they came, and something about the dragons that bring criminals that they then mould into ideal citizens."

"I wish it could be that simple," Gramdin replied. "We always thought the dragons would be too intent on their task to notice if there were any changes on the islands where we directed them to land. For that reason, though, we kept the sites on the surface the same, and used the underground lava flow tunnels for living. We hoped that in the business of landing and leaving their burdens, then going again - and of course in the going home, they would flash straight into _between_ - they wouldn't notice."

F'lar nodded. "That would be about right, I think. No reports have ever come back that the Eastern Islands are populated, and I suppose we accepted that - although - if anyone thought deeply about it - they might wonder where the criminals were?"

"They would probably think them dead," Rogen snapped.

F'lar considered him, and then nodded.

"As you say, we probably assumed them dead. Now then - I brought the Master Harper, because if we are all going to Landing, we need a specific set of people to be present, and I don't think we want the Lord Holders alerted just yet?"

"Landing?" Sallee asked quickly. "We planned to go and have a look, see what's been uncovered - "

"You wouldn't get far, Miss Sallee," F'lar said courteously. "We - and AIVAS - before he shut down - set up safeguards. And there is always a corps of people, mostly young apprentices and journeymen, studying there."

Sallee looked startled, and almost angry.

"Yet you say AIVAS was shut down?"

"AIVAS switched himself off when he deemed the time was right," Lord D'ram said. "The records of the level of technology set by the first settlers is available, we're working towards that level, but AIVAS switched off because - I suppose - he could have afforded us too much."

Sallee made a note on the pad by her hand.

"I see. So you have people studying by rotation at Landing now? Those descended from the Charter founders and the settlers both?"

"We make no distinction between them," F'lar said. "In fact, it wasn't until AIVAS alerted us to the original Charter, that we realised how the settlement had been set up, how they left Earth."

"Do you make a differentiation between the two sets, on the Islands?" Lessa asked. "I am of Ruatha - descended from the man who founded that Hold."

"Red Hanrahan," Sallee said with a nod. "He is known to our histories. His daughter was the first Weyrwoman, the first queen rider."

"We make no differentiation," Rogen said. "Sometimes people might try and say they are better than others - we keep a very close watch on the bloodlines, and anyone can request a tracing of their own line. Occasionally, yes, someone might get the idea they should be leader or lord or something."

"And they are rapidly disabused?" F'lar asked.

"There is neither the time nor the resources to set up petty lordlings," Rogen replied. "We must work for the good of all, and our system allows for the election of a Leader, and the putting away of a Leader."

Lessa glanced at Sallee. "And you are the daughter of the present Leader?"

"Yes. My grandfather was Leader also, but between him and my father, there was another man who served."

"And will you be Leader? Or is that position barred to women?"

"This is Pern," Sallee said quietly, but with a challenge in her voice. "On Pern, all are equal, all have an equal say, and all must be heard. I don't say all can achieve the same, because humans are as different from each other as any other set of species is varied within itself. But yes, I stand as much chance as Bar."

"Much more chance, m'dear," Bar said with a laugh. "Me? Leader? I like to observe, and make my music."

Sallee looked as if she might say more, but then shook her head and laced her fingers together, frowning a little as Bar spoke again in his deep gentle voice.

"We'd be grateful for your permit and escort to Landing, Weyrleader. All of us, from the Islands, and from the mainland, would benefit, I think, from some study there."

"A true word," Sebell said. "Are you an Islander?"

"Yes, I am," Bar answered. "Once, I was a harper in Nerat, but I've been of the Islands a dozen years now, and I make my songs and tunes for them."

"I'd be pleased to hear them, sometime," Sebell said at once, and Bar nodded agreement.

F'lar stood up.

"We've enough dragons to make the transition easily, if you feel you can cope going dragon-back, all of you Islanders?"

Sallee looked up at him, clenching her hands together, and then relaxing them again.

"I think - I think I would like that," she said slowly.

Lessa stood up also.

"Ramoth would be pleased to take you, Miss Sallee," she said formally. "Shall we find some warm clothes for you? I brought some spare jackets."

F'lar grinned at her. "I didn't!"

"No, you rushed out of the Weyr, as usual, and left us all behind," Lessa said.

"I had to pick up the Master Harper!"

"Hah! As if he wasn't ready and waiting after your message! I'm only surprised Menolly isn't here as well!"

Sebell smiled peaceably at them.

"She'll find out soon enough, Lady Lessa! Shall we be going, then?"

F'lar nodded, and Rayden looked at his son.

"I'd be grateful if - if - Maranath - would take me, son?"

"He'd be honoured, Pa, and so would I."


	29. Chapter 29

_**All right, the usual disclaimer, and how come characters manage to get a life of their own? I didn't see this ending coming at all.**_

St'ven mounted in front of his father and felt his arms go around his waist. The other dragons were lifting, G'frey and Lamath carrying Bar the harper, the others distributed amongst the stronger dragons of Benden. The watch dragon from Cove Hold took his share and Rayden nudged St'ven's shoulder.

"Don't fret over it, son, Maranath couldn't carry more than this burden at his age."

"I suppose not. Pa - we don't speak in our minds, between ourselves, do we?"

"Well, you and I do, sometimes, son, because you borrow me. I can do it with your mother as well, G - Goranth taught us when he was alive."

"When did Ma - oh! In that foray back into the past?"

"Yes." Rayden laughed, a somewhat forced laugh. "She told me back then we just had to wait for her to grow up! Only we never thought - there'd only be two of us - in the end."

"Sorry - I know you don't like talking about it - I've never asked - "

"And that's partly our fault. Your mother felt him go, even over that distance to the Islands."

They fell silent then, Maranath hovering to take his position from Mnementh, and then they had flashed through _between_ and were coming out over the area called Landing. St'ven peered down and saw the sunlight reflecting from the power panels, the glitter of the curved roof of the building housing AIVAS, the houses, stables, and walkways from the village that had sprung up around the area. He raised his head and looked around the area, seeing the inevitable electric fence against predators. A fair of fire lizards was cavorting in the sunlight, some banded, some wild.

"Look down there, son, see who's there," Rayden said grimly, pointing, and St'ven focussed.

"Lord Holder Toric! How did he get here?"

"I daresay he ordered one of Southern Weyr's dragon riders to bring him," Rayden replied. "This should make for an interesting meeting - Benden's seen him!"

They circled downwards, and Mnementh was touching down, releasing his rider and the two historians he carried. Mnementh rose to his hind legs and flapped his wings, warbling, and then settled again on the grass, but as he descended, St'ven could see the great bronze dragon's eyes were whirling an angry yellow.

"You and me both, bronze," Rayden muttered as he helped his son down. He looked at Maranath.

"Are you amenable to keeping the harness on, Maranath? In case of - in case of something - anything - going wrong?"

_- I will speak to the little brothers, and see how this man has come so quickly. Be careful, dear heart, and you, father of my rider, guard your tongues, Mnementh says, and so do I_

Rayden nodded, and they began walking, stripping off jacket, gloves and helmet as they did so.

"I could do with one of Ma's nice scarves," St'ven said, and nearly jumped out of his skin as someone turned towards them.

"You'll have one as soon as it's off the loom, son," his mother said, took a pace and embraced him fiercely.

"Ma - what are you doing here - how did you come - oh, I'm sorry - to have flung off like that left all of you - "

"Hey now, what sort of talk is that from a dragon rider, eh?"

She held him off, examining him, and then smiled at Rayden.

"I picked up a deal of disturbance from the fire lizards, and thought I'd come and see what's going on. You'll see the Lord Toric?"

"I see him. Has he recognised you?"

She shook her head. "Not that I know of. He showed up here just about the same time as I did, on dragon back, looking mightily put out, but he'll soon try and turn this to his advantage."

"The one person Benden might not have wanted here," Rayden agreed, as they went to join the group. Someone had come running to take their flying gear, and Rayden came up to stand near the Benden Weyrleaders.

The Lord Holder of Southern, Toric, looked around at all of them, his gaze lingering on Rayden and St'ven.

"I know you two - you evaded my justice a while ago - I'll have you back under lock and key one of these days."

Rayden smiled at him and said nothing, and Toric turned back to F'lar and Lessa.

"I hear there's been developments along my coast no one's thought to inform me about, Benden. Strangers, so they say."

"I didn't know your land extended as far as Cove Hold," F'lar replied. "That's where these strangers came, yes, rescued from a storm at sea."

"And you plan to let them see all of the facilities here at Landing? Without any consultation? What about the quorum?"

"There was always a quorum, with a Weyrleader and a Master present," Sebell said. "With you present, it is even more so, it is not, Lord Toric?"

Toric glared at him, and took a pace towards Bar and Sallee who were standing together, slightly in front of the historians.

"And where have you arrived from, that I haven't been informed about?"

Sallee drew herself up.

"We are here to see the developments and change brought about by AIVAS - Lord Holder - with the permit of the Benden Weyrleader and the Master Harper."

"I didn't ask you, missee, I don't need pert answers from a half grown girl - "

"We will endorse her words," Gramdim said in a mild voice. "We wish to know about AIVAS, and the Weyrleader was kind enough to grant permit. I see the entrance - perhaps you would stand aside?"

Toric laughed rudely.

"I don't stand aside for anyone, not even for lawbreakers and holdless drifters like that fisherman and his family, let alone you, strangers."

"Lord Toric, you are holding us up," Lessa said, taking a half pace forward. "Be so good as to stand aside."

Toric faced her off for a moment, then shrugged and stood aside.

"You'll not mind if I come after, will you?" he asked sarcastically. "After all, I am a Lord Holder with interests in the computer in there."

"Everyone on Pern has equal rights to the knowledge held here," Sebell pointed out as they walked towards the mainframe rooms. People peered out at them, and most of them withdrew to their rooms again. Piemur came out into the sunshine and stood watching them approach.

"Well met, brown rider," he said to St'ven. "Come inside, all of you."

They followed down the corridor, glancing into the rooms where other young people were studying or writing or drawing. Jancis, Piemur's partner, stood in the doorway of the mainframe room, and F'lar nodded to her.

"Good day. You'll see the properly appointed quorum, I think?"

She gestured them inside and St'ven walked in with Bar, wondering what he had expected to see. Shiny cabinets, a flat empty screen, a chair, some flashing lights were all that this room contained, and it looked like the computer rooms at Honshu.

"This is where AIVAS spoke from," F'lar said, gesturing around the room. "The computer records are accessed from the side rooms, we can call up the histories we need - "

They all jumped in unison as a voice spoke in the room and the screen in front of them suddenly glowed with light.

"Good day to you, Weyrleader F'lar."


	30. Chapter 30

_**Now it starts getting really interesting! And yes, there will be more about St'ven and his family. With the usual disclaimers to Anne McCaffrey.**_

Everyone stared in stunned amazement at the interface.

"Good day to you, AIVAS," F'lar said at last in a strangled voice. "How - why are you speaking?"

"My systems have analysed the speech in the near vicinity, and detected anomalies. There are strangers, yet this is a closed planetary society in which there should be no strangers."

"Everyone is a stranger to some degree," Rayden pointed out. "You have detected Islanders, people descended from various outcasts of society."

"You will tell me of these strangers."

Toric had been staring, and now shouldered his way forward.

"There's no need for that," he said harshly. "Since you're active again, you can answer some of the questions I can't get answered by these snot-faced cubs who claim to be the arbiters of knowledge!"

"The knowledge you seek is common to all," AIVAS replied. "But it could be of importance to the rest of Pern to know where you have put settlers, and how you have armed them, and their exact orders at the time when Threadfall finishes."

Toric gaped and gasped like a fish out of water, and D'ram signalled to two of the hefty guards.

"Escort the Lord Holder to a secure room," he said grimly. "We will speak later about this!"

St'ven had been staring from one to the other; in this close proximity he could see perfectly well, and now he moved to Sallee's side.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

"Such animosity! Such anger! Is it necessary? I had thought all of you Mainlanders would be of one accord."

"Far from it," F'lar responded grimly, gesturing Gramdin to seat himself. "The Lord Holder is ambitious, and sees no bar on himself holding all of Southern."

Gramdin had cautiously put his hand where indicated, and pulled it back with an exclamation as a drop of blood welled and fell onto the plate.

"It's all right!" Lessa said. "It's a way of finding out who you are, by an advanced method. It's part of the advanced knowledge AIVAS decided was not right for us."

"This society was set up as semi-agricultural, of a less advanced scientific level," AIVAS said.

"I know that," Lessa answered testily. "Oh all right - it's an argument I won't win!"

Gramdin jumped and stared as paper spat out of a printer.

"Ah now! We have texts to say this should happen from a computer, but we don't have the spare parts to mend ours. What does it say?"

He viewed the columns of figures and letters, shaking his head, and F'lar gestured to someone hovering in the doorway.

"You've studied the genetics? This is a genetic patterning?"

"Yes sir. Here we are - a line of descent."

"You can tell me my ancestors?" Gramdin asked with a laugh. "Why, I can do that, and give you dates as well! We keep that knowledge because of crossing the bloodlines."

"You will tell me of these Islands," AIVAS commanded, and the three historians looked at Sallee.

"With your permit, Miss Sallee?" Rogen asked formally.

"Yes, tell our story," she said. "It is, after all, why we came, although we had meant to do so covertly. But we are known, and will remain known."

The others retreated, and F'lar looked at Lessa and Sebell.

"We need to question the Lord Holder Toric, I think? I had not realised AIVAS still has a working link to all the computers on Pern!"

"I'm not sure he does, not in the way the ancient computers were linked," Sebell replied cautiously. "But if he is still active on some levels, and people here chatter freely, that knowledge would be in the databases by now. Yes, question the Lord Holder on his activities - is he still seeding the land with his progeny and dependents, do you think?"

"I think that may be the least he is doing," F'lar replied.

They came out into a larger room, and Piemur had been busy, there was food and drink, and St'ven hurried to his mother to speak to her.

"I sensed you had a dragon," she said. "I understand Miss Sallee is a sensitive as I am? Yes, I knew you had been Searched and Impressed. Wonderful news."

"Not so much for Pa?"

She glanced at Rayden. "It may ease him a little, although as you know, nothing can fully ease the pain."

"He said - you had a link with his dragon?"

"Yes I did. Once we've had a chance to get to know your dragon, I may have a link again."

He looked around as F'lar and Sebell came into the room, looking grimly angry, crossing at once to Sallee.

"I have to tell you, the Lord Holder, having been alerted by dragonkind, has sent armed men to take over the Islands as being part of his - Empire - " F'lar said bluntly. "The dragons took the co-ordinates from those who flew the criminals out."

"Then they will land on Imprisonment Island," Sallee responded at once. "That's the only place your dragons would recognise with any clarity."

"And - who will be waiting? Won't they be terrified of half a dozen dragons carrying armed men?"

"How are they armed?"

"Bows and arrows, swords, the like," Sebell responded. "Heavily armed!"

She nodded with composure. "They will be overwhelmed, and imprisoned immediately, and no doubt a message sent to my father up the chain of Islands."

"But - are your men armed?" Sebell asked.

"Oh yes. Have no fear for them! The guards always remain under cover until the dragons depart, so the guards will not be unprepared for an influx of people, armed or not. This is very strange - why should he want the Islands?"

"Because he thinks they will be of advantage to him," F'lar said angrily. "I cannot believe him, even though the Lady Sharra - his sister - has always warned us, over and over, of his ambition."

Sallee shook her head. "Surely there's land in plenty in Southern?"

"Dragon riders will lay claim to some of it," Sebell said. "But it's huge! Even if you cannot settle the snowy heights, there is plenty for all."

"Some men will always want more," Sallee said. "But what of us, Weyrleader? What will the rest of the Weyrleaders and Lord Holders make of us, and how will they react to us? Are we still outcasts?"

Rayden looked around at all of them.

"I asked you once, and I ask again - what happens to those people exiled on the Eastern Islands? Do their heirs and successors deserve to be exiled - are the sins of the fathers to be visited on the generations following?"


	31. Chapter 31

_**The usual disclaimer, and with this chapter I may be taking the story into uncharted territory, but there again, it's my interpretation. I apologise for the "telling and not showing" but I needed to cover a lot of explanations of loose ends.**_

F'lar tapped his cup on the table, bringing their attention back to him.

"There are too many mysteries about this, too many loose ends," he said decisively. "Miss Sallee, you tell us the folk in the Islands felt it time to come here. Why was that?"

"Because we had news that AIVAS had awoken and then stopped again."

"Would you ever have revealed yourselves otherwise?"

"I believe not. The life we live is sufficient for us."

"And if dragonriders decided to inhabit those islands? They are riddled with caves, I think you said?"

"They are indeed, and there are one or two islands, other than Young Island, still active volcanically, enough for us to utilise the heat to make water, and to forge items for our use."

"Make water? How do you make water?"

"Not make it by chemical interaction, but simply by driving pipes into the heated rocks. The steam will collect in them, roll down under gravity, and condense as pure water that can be distributed. Some of the islands are very dry."

"You keep people and crops under cover, out of sight?"

"Not only from dragons, but from the depredations of Thread in a Pass. The Islands are grubbed."

F'lar had been making notes, as had Lessa, and now she looked up from her notes with a frown.

"I don't understand how you have some words, and terms, we have forgotten."

"Those are from the first settlers, I believe, when all such terms were common knowledge. AIVAS must have used them?"

"Yes, and very difficult we found them, at first."

Sallee laced her fingers together, staring at them, and then looked around at them.

"Forgive me, if I make an observation you will not like," she said at last. "But your society, the mainland society, had gone backwards, to some degree, from the first settlers?"

"You make an observation the Harper Hall has already recognised," Sebell said strongly. "We are the ones who go out teaching and observing, and from what I have learned from AIVAS, we had indeed gone backwards. Do you claim to have gone forward?"

Sallee shook her head. "By no means! But our backwards was different, if you see what I mean? We had computer power and electrical power for a lot longer than the mainlanders, and from that we made simple technology that works. The system you have in place, for messages to go down a wire - we've had that almost from the start. The power of the sun - we understand that although we have very few devices that work in that manner."

"Are you saying you would understand what AIVAS revealed to us?" Sebell asked. "If we had known of your existence, you would have been part of the great effort to swing the Red Star out of orbit?"

"Ah now, and that we don't understand!" Sallee said eagerly. "We know two of the transport ships are no longer in orbit, but we don't know why, or where they are now."

"That we can explain," F'lar said. "We can produce documentation for you to take home to explain how it happened."

"That would be useful."

Lessa drew a line under her notes.

"And what about these men Toric has sent? I don't understand how he could have suborned dragonriders to go somewhere only known to a few!"

"And so quickly," Rayden said thoughtfully. "We've only known of you for a few days, Miss Sallee, yet he has rallied his troops and sent men almost on the breath of the rumour."

She shook her head.

"I don't know either, Rayden, but my guess would be the wild fire lizards, communicating in all innocence with those looking to men. Fire lizards live and breed in the southern Islands, and indeed on Imprisonment Island. I think it may be co-incidence, our coming and his men going, so to speak. As if he had planned it for a long time?"

"Maranath says the little brothers tell him that is right," St'ven said shyly. "He speaks to them a lot, and he says they did not realise they should not speak - unlike the dolphins? Is that right, Miss Sallee?"

She nodded. "The dolphins have known of us for generations, but they have always kept our secret. Well - no one ever said a wild fire lizard could be completely tamed!"

Everyone laughed, and the tension went out of the meeting as people turned to each other to discuss the events.

Sebell leaned across to speak to Bar.

"Are you making a song? I believe one or two of your songs made it to Harper Hall?"

Bar flushed. "They may have done, yes, simple little dance measures mostly, with a set or two of words."

"And you're working on one now?"

Bar grinned at his sympathetic smile. "I am. I have been trying out some music like Master Domick's as well - I have a choir of very good voices on the Islands."

Sebell made a face. "Do they like his kind of music?"

"Oddly enough, yes they do, because we are surrounded by such wild seas and storms." Bar shrugged. "Not everyone likes all kinds of music, Masterharper, so I try and be versatile, and teach others."

"Do you teach harping?"

"Voice and pipes, and the making of instruments. There have been others with musical talent, they tell me, but very few actual trained harpers."

"I'll have to take word to Harper Hall. If the Islanders are integrated, you will have to let me have copies of your songs, and notes of your teachings."

Bar looked away. "They aren't anything," he said, and Sebell tapped his arm.

"I am the Masterharper, and I will decide if they're worth anything," he said, and Bar subsided, nodding his acceptance.

"Is Maranath in communication with the fire lizards?" Rayden asked his son.

"Yes, Pa, they get on - Maranath is trying to learn how to write, so he can write down the songs of the little brothers, and the dolphins."

"Write it down - a dragon wants to learn to read and write?"

St'ven smiled nervously. "I think - because of my sight handicap - and channelling my schooling through him - he doesn't see any barrier."

"That's dragons for you," Rayden said with a sigh, shaking his head. "They take an idea into their heads, and you can't shake it out again. I'll be right interested to see what he comes up with!"

"So will I!" St'ven said with a grin. "Pa - why don't the others think through their minds like you and me and Ma?"

"I can't answer that, son. Just the way it happens in families, I suppose -"

Rogen leaned over.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing that last part - on the Islands we've always believed that men can make the same telepathic links as dragons to their riders."

"Not many dragon riders get exiled," Rayden said bluntly.

"No, but their families might be! Your father for instance? His family joined him, and you were a dragon rider. Dragon riders have interbred among themselves for generations, and strengthened the abilities inherent in them."

"We were taught the ones who had empathy were enhanced before men landed on Pern."

Rogen frowned. "Really? Is that true? I need to consult about that before I can agree. But you and your son exhibit telepathy?"

"I suppose we do," Rayden agreed. "I'll try and find the relevant documents for you, historian."

"Thanks. As to why the rest of your family don't have telepathy - the dragons did not search and choose them, did they?"

Rayden smiled. "No, they did not, and they would not have this one if he and I had not quarrelled and flung off from each other."

He put a hand on St'ven's shoulder and rocked him, and St'ven smiled in gratitude at the healing of the rift that had hurt him more than he realised.

_- he is a good man_

_- yes, dear heart, a very good man. What are you doing now?_

_- talking to your mother_

St'ven blinked back to the present, and shook his head as Piemur came over.

"Done any more copying, youngster?"

"Not at the moment, I've been a bit busy with - things -"

Piemur laughed and walked away, and St'ven watched him go around the other groups.

_- he goes to the room where the island man makes notes_

_- who goes?_

_- the thick man with the loud voice. There is danger there - you must stop him_

_- I cannot run all that way_

_- he will be killed, and everything will be different and wrong - you must stop him. I will help you_

St'ven came to his feet, knocking over his chair, everyone looking at him, and he stared wildly around.

"The Lord Holder Toric! He's attacking Gramdin and AIVAS!"

He staggered, and shook his head, because he was in the computer room, and Gramdin was lying on the floor, the Lord Holder was striding over to AIVAS, shouting his demands, and St'ven threw himself at him and hurled him to the ground at the moment two lances of light shot out of the walls and make a corruscating dazzle of light where Toric had been standing a second before.


	32. Chapter 32

_**Thank you, Anne McCaffrey, for creating a world for us to play in!**_

_**This is the final chapter, and I thank all of you who have reviewed and enjoyed the story. That's all folks!**_

Morning has come now, over this new age

Dragons and riders have triumphed in all.

Praising our forefathers, we can give thanks,

Praising their foresight, giving us life.

Sweet is the sunlight, sweet is the living

Like the first landing, here on our world.

Praising our forefathers, we can give thanks,

Praising their foresight, giving us life.

Ours is the bounty, ours is the future

Living as one folk, linked and secure.

Praising our forefathers, we can give thanks,

Praising their foresight, giving us life.

St'ven sat up slowly, shaking his head, aware of a spray of blood from his nose, throbbing pain in his face.

Lord Holder Toric lay under him, staring at the places in the walls which smoked a little from the impact of the impossibly bright light which still shimmered in St'ven vision.

Gramdin stirred and sat up, staring in bewilderment at them.

"What - what happened?"

"I might ask you that," St'ven replied, blotting at his nose. "My dragon, Maranath, said the Lord Holder was attacking you - he transported me here."

Gramdin scrabbled for his pen and notepaper.

"He did it, or he assisted you? We have had instances in the Islands of involuntary teleportation."

St'ven looked down at the Hord Holder, and shifted his weight.

"Lord Holder?"

"Mmm?"

"Are - are you all right?"

"Apart from being covered in your gore? Yes, I'm all right."

He did not move, however, and St'ven exchanged a worried glance with Gramdin. The historian had hauled himself up and set the chair upright.

"I fell over," he said with a grimace. "I was so startled to have him stride in on me like that, demanding, I leaped up, caught my foot, and fell over!"

"Maranath said he was attacking you! That's why I came over here!"

"Well - he was certainly in an unfriendly mood, demanding I move away so he could operate the machine." Gramdin glanced at the computer interface. "Does he know how to use it?"

"Of course I do," Toric said, still in that dreamily absent voice. "I have computers of my own, although I prefer to use my own judgement."

"Which can turn out to be fatally flawed," D'ram said from the doorway. He stood looking into the room, and St'ven gestured him in.

"The danger's past, I think," he said. "Can you help me?"

He put an arm under Toric, and with D'ram's assistance brought him to a second chair. D'ram ran light fingers over his head and neck, and did the same for St'ven.

"Apart from that blood, you're all right, youngster. Did you know you vanished straight out of the conference room?"

"Yes, Maranath helped me."

"Did you go _between_?"

St'ven shook his head.

"No, there was no sensation of that. Just - there and then here. Can you see the damage there? AIVAS fired something at the space the Lord Holder was standing in."

D'ram walked across to look.

"He did the same when someone threatened him - came to destroy him - one of those who called him an Abomination."

"We don't need a supercomputer, telling us what to do," Toric said in a stronger voice, seeming to be coming out of his daze. "We've managed all these centuries, why should we put ourselves at the mercy of a machine? Isn't that what happened to the men of Earth where the Pern expedition came from?"

"So the oldest histories say," Gramdin said, gathering up his notes. "As you can see, AIVAS has switched himself off again, after taking our history from me. That history will no doubt be gathered up into your students' studies, and we of the Islands will have to rely on your goodwill, I suppose, not to wipe us out?"

"What about the armed men?" St'ven asked urgently. "Lord Holder Toric sent men to conquer the Islands!"

Gramdin laughed out loud, shaking his head.

"I don't think so, dragon rider, no, I don't think so at all! Thank you for the additional men, Lord Holder Toric, good strong men can always be used in the fields and in the work places we have. With weapons? Thank you for those as well!"

"Are you saying - they will never be allowed off the Islands?" D'ram asked, and Gramdin nodded.

"That's our rule, once in, never out. Are Rogen and Leger in the other room? I need to consult with them."

He strode out of the room, and D'ram blinked in surprise.

"He doesn't seem overly bothered," he remarked.

"I don't think he is," St'ven replied. "He's very focussed."

They heard Gramdin's voice, and then F'lar and Sebell had come into the room, and Lord Holder Toric stood up slowly.

"There's no need to shout," he said testily. "I can hear you perfectly well. If you can provide me with a dragon escort, I will go home. I need to - be alone - after that - I had no idea - of its power."

He fell silent, shaking his head, brushing distastefully at his clothes, and F'lar jerked his head to the doorway.

"I'll take you, Toric," he said grimly.

"Thank you."

"We need to convene a Lord Holder's meeting, and discuss this," D'ram said to F'lar, who looked thoughtfully at him.

"I'd rather not," he said at last. "I don't want the Islanders to be overwhelmed, and I don't want the Lord Holders to take fright at the thought of a different society on our world."

"They won't be afraid, surely?" D'ram asked, and F'lar made a face.

"One or two might take fright, yes, I'm sure you know them as well as I do, D'ram. For now - we act as if nothing has happened, and begin to sound them out about our future course."

St'ven followed them, and then hesitated and came back to stand in front of the interface.

"I don't know if you can hear me," he said awkwardly. "I think the Lord Holder is right in one way, that we don't need to tap into your full database, but the Islanders will need help to mend their computers, and maybe to use the sun as the new mechanisms are built to do. You could put that information into a print out for them."

There was no response, and St'ven shrugged and turned to walk out.

"You are a new development," AIVAS said, and St'ven turned around.

"A new development? Of what?"

"The ability to communicate telepathically, and by extension, to embrace all the other powers of the mind over matter. I am aware that the enhancement of the human mind occurred before colonisation of this world, but it has become concentrated over the centuries. You are possibly the only exponent of it at present, but it may fix in the population."

St'ven studied the screen, which had gone blank again except for the one sentence written in the bottom left hand corner. He turned and walked out to join the others, to find his father showing Lessa on a map where he had claimed land, and the extensive cave system and glass houses he had adapted for growing food.

"Caves," Lessa said ruefully. "Always, it is caves."

"Caves are safe, my lady," he said with a smile. "And once you've seen the wonderfully warm wallhangings the Islanders produce, I think you will find them beautiful as well."

"I never could understand why the walls had to be bare rock," she agreed, and Rayden laughed.

"I suspect they were not, at first! But survival puts creativity and beauty into the back seat. Now - we can beautify our world as well want - and in especial in about - oh - fifteen years?"

She nodded fiercely. "That will be the time for beauty. What are your plans, Miss Sallee?"

Sallee had been writing notes, and now looked up.

"For now, we must go back to consult with the Island Councils," she said.

"How will you get messages back to us?" Sebell asked.

"By dragonrider," she replied. "That is not a phrase I had ever thought I would use, but yes, if the dragonriders are agreeable, it would be helpful."

"A lot of dragonriders now know the location of Imprisonment Island," Sebell pointed out.

"Yes, and that Island has the advantage of a cleared landing place for a dragon."

"You maintain it cleared?"

"Yes. The wirespeakers connect all the others Islands and are near on instantaneous."

"As we have found, if there is no Thread to chew through them."

"We encase the wires in glass," Rogen said. "Glass is something we understand and work with. You, for instance, St'ven, would benefit from our oculist making you a pair of glasses rather than hanging that clumsy magnifier around your neck all the time."

St'ven touched the glass in the soft pouch.

"I keep forgetting to use it," he said.

"Glasses," Rogen said firmly. "We will arrange it once everything is settled."

"Thank you."

Rogen shook his head. "Thank you instead, I think, dragon rider, because you rescued us twice over, from the ocean, and from that madman Toric."

"I think he was so shaken by AIVAS' defences it will take him some time to recover," Rayden said. "Well, if you have finished with me here, I think my wife and I might usefully go back to Cove Hold and my vessel. There's Thread timed for evening, I think, and there's always good fishing after that."

"This evening here, yes," Lessa said, standing up. "Later than that in Benden, but time I was going home to supervise the crews and get ready."

She turned to study St'ven, who flushed up, but met her gaze.

"And you, young brown rider, I hope you will visit Benden with that remarkable dragon of yours in the near future? Reading and writing in a dragon! These are strange times."

She saluted them all and went out, D'ram escorting her, and Sallee drew a breath.

"We must be going home as well. But the ships -"

"They will be mended and returned, but I'm sure you can have dragon escort," F'lar said, coming back into the room, his face reddened from his trip _between_. "Mnementh tells me he is eager to see what your guards have done with the armed men Toric sent."

"How is the Lord Holder?" St'ven asked. "He seemed - so shocked - was he hurt?"

"Only in his pride, I hope," F'lar replied dryly. "I left him meekly writing out who and what he had sent to camouflaged holds to await his orders. I hope this will knock him back, but I fear it will only be temporary."

Sebell turned to Bar.

"I could offer you a place at Harper Hall, having seen your music," he said. Bar smiled a little, and shook his head.

"Once in, never out, Masterharper, although I thank you."

"Send that new music to the Hall, then, for Domick to see?"

"I will do that."

He crossed to where the Islanders stood, and Sallee moved to stand next to him.

"I'm glad you're coming home, Bar," she said.

"You and me both, lass, and maybe I could be bold enough to visit your home cavern, eh?"

"That would be - nice - " she murmured, on a blush, and they left the room to join their dragon escorts.

Rayden pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

"Interesting! Music in the line as well as empathy, eh?"

"What line?" St'ven asked as they left the room to find their riding gear.

"Ours, son, our joint line. Valin - her father - is descended from my other sister."

"Does she know? Why didn't she say?"

"There wasn't any need to say, was there?" St'ven's mother said as she fell into step with them. "She knew, of course, but unless the lines crossed again, there would be no need to declare it. Are we going home, then, Rayden?"

"I'd think so, love, wouldn't you? Enough excitement for a lifetime, all of this. I'll be pleased to get the computers up and working again, though, and that's something I've been promised. Are you for your Weyr, son?"

St'ven nodded as they came up to Maranath who was ready harnessed for their short trip to Cove Hold.

"I'll be in touch, Pa, I promise."

"And I'll send you that scarf, son, as soon as I get it off the loom," his mother promised. "Time enough to do that, now."

"And a time to every purpose under heaven," St'ven said slowly. "Our times have changed, and the challenges might be different, but that's what all of life is, a challenge."


End file.
